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KINGSLEY    #    CHARLES   KINGSLEY 


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CHARLES    KINGSLEY 


HIS    LETTERS    AND    MEMORIES    OF    HIS    LIFE 


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Copyright,  1877,  by 
SCRIBNER,  ARMSTRONG  &  CO. 


TROWS 

PRINTING  AND  QOOKBINDINQ  COMPANY, 

NEW  YORK. 


H)eDicateD 

TO   THE    BELOVED   MEMORY 
OF 

A  RIGHTEOUS   MAN 

WHO   LOVED    GOD   AND   TRUTH   ABOVE  ALL  THINGS, 

A  MAN   OF   UNTARNISHED   HONOUR — 

LOYAIi   AND   CHIVALROUS — GENTLE   AND   STRONG — 

MODEST   AND    HUMBLE — TENDER   AND   TRUE — 

PITIFUL  TO   THE    WEAK — YEARNING   AFTER  THE  ERRING — 

STERN   TO  ALL   FORMS   OF   WRONG  AND  OPPRESSION, 

YET   MOST   STERN    TOWARDS    HIMSELF — 

WHO   BEING   ANGRY,  YET    SINNED   NOT. 

WHOSE   HIGHEST    VIRTUES   WERE   KNOWN   ONLY 

TO   HIS   WIFE,  HIS   CHILDREN,  HIS   SERVANTS,  AND   THE   POOR. 

WHO  LIVED   IN   THE   PRESENCE   OF  GOD   HERE, 

AND   PASSING   THROUGH   THE   GRAVE  AND   GATE   OF   DEATH 

NOW  LIVETH   UNTO  GOD   FOR  EVERMORE. 


INTRODUCTORY    NOTE  TO    THE 
ABRIDGMENT. 


As  published  in  London,  these  Memoirs  of  CHARLES 
KiNGSLEY  extended  to  two  octavo  volumes  of  five  hundred 
pages  each.  These  volumes  are  here  abridged  in  the  hope 
that  to  the  American  reader  the  interest  of  the  Memoirs 
may  be  increased.  In  the  English  edition,  long  and  fre- 
quent extracts  were  made  from  Mr.  Kingsley's  published 
works.  These  have  been  dropped  from  this  volume,  while 
the  references  to  them  have  been  retained.  The  Mem- 
ories of  Mr.  Kingsley  supplied  by  intimate  friends,  at 
the  request  of  his  widow,  have  been  reduced  where  the 
different  writers  dwelt  upon  the  same  characteristics; 
others  which  lacked  point  and  partook  more  of  the  nature 
of  personal  panegyric,  have  been  omitted  altogether.  Last 
of  all,  the  abridgment  has  necessarily  fallen  upon  Mr. 
Kingsley's  letters,  but  pains  have  been  taken  to  preserve 
his  own  record  of  the  conclusions  at  which  he  arrived  upon 
the  many  important  problems  that  occupied  his  incessantly 
active  mind,  although  it  has  been  impossible,  as  indeed  it 
has  seemed  unnecessary,  to  reproduce  his  record  of  all  the 
phases  through  which  he  passed  in  arriving  at  these  conclu- 
sions.   The  narrative  in  which  Mrs.  Kingslev  has  supplied 


^iii        Introductory  Note  to  the  Abridgment. 

the  biographical  details  necessary  to  connect  these  letters 
has  been  left  intact,  and  an  advantage  may  justly  be 
claimed  for  the  abridgment  in  the  fact  that  the  modesty, 
the  excellent  taste,  and  the  intense  affection  and  sincere 
reverence  for  her  lamented  husband  which  mark  this  pari 
of  these;  Memoirs  are  here  brought  into  greater  promi- 
nence than  it  was  possible  for  them  to  have  in  the  original 
work. 

Editor  of  the  Abridgment. 


PREFACE  TO  THE   LONDON    EDITION. 


In  bringing  out  these  Volumes,  thanks  are  due  anc 
gratefully  offered  to  all  who  have  generously  g«  en  theii 
help  to  the  work ; — to  the  many  known  and  inknowr 
Correspondents  who  have  treasured  and  lent  the  letters 
now  first  made  public;  —  to  the  Publishers,  who  have 
allowed  quotations  to  be  made  from  Mr.  Kingsley's 
published  works ;  —  to  the  Artists,  especially  Sheldon 
Williams,  Esq.,  and  Francis  Goode,  Esq.,  of  Hartley 
Wintney,  &c.,  whose  sketches  and  photographs  have  been 
kindly  given  for  the  Illustrations  of  the  book ;  but  above 
all  to  the  friends  who  have  so  eloquently  borne  witness 
to  his  character  and  genius.  These  written  testimonies  to 
their  father's  worth  are  a  rich  inheritance  to  his  children, 
and  God  only  knows  the  countless  unwritten  ones,  of 
souls  rescued  from  doubt,  darkness,  error,  and  sin,  of  work 
done,  the  worth  of  which  can  never  be  calculated  upon 
earth,  of  seed  sown  which  has  borne,  and  wiU  still  bear 
fruit  for  years,  perhaps  for  generations  to  come,  when 
the  name  of  Charles  Kingsley  is  forgotten,  while  his 
unconscious  influence  will  endure  treasured  up  in  the 
eternal  world,  where  nothing  really  good  or  great  can  be 


X  Preface. 

lo:^t  or  pa?i«  awa}'  to  be  revealed  at  that  Da)*  when 
Gods  Book  shall  be  opened  and  the  thoughts  of  al! 
hearts  be  made  known. 

For  the  feeble  thread,  imptrfect  and  unworthy  of  its 
great  subject,  with  which  these  precious  records  are  tied 
together,  the  Editor  can  only  ask  a  merciful  judgment 
from  the  public. 

F.  E.  K. 

Byfleet,   October^  1S76. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I. 

Biith  and  Parentage-- Inherited  Talents — Removal  from  Devonshire  to  Bur- 
ton-on-Trent  — Ch'"*on — Barnack  and  its  Traditions— First  Sermon  and 
Poems — Childish  Character — Effect  of  Fen  Scenery  on  his  Mind ai 


CHAPTER  H. 
1830  — 1S38. 
Aged  11-19. 

Life  at  Clovelly— School  Life  at  Clifton— Bristol  Riots— Their  Effect  on  his 
Mind — Helston — Early  Friendships — Letters  from  Rev.  Derwent  Cole- 
ridge and  Rev.  R.  C.  Powles — Move  to  Chelsea — Enters  King's  College, 
I  -or  don 3c 


CHAPTER  HI. 

1838— 1842. 

Aged  19-23. 

iJfc  at  Cambridge — Visit  to  Oxfordshire — Undergraduate  Days — Decides  to 
take  Orders — Takes  his  Degree — Correspondence — Letters  from  Cam- 
bridge Friends (I 


CHAPTER  IV. 

1842  — 1843. 
Aged  23-24. 

Reads    for    Holy    Orders — Correspondence — Ordaineu    Deacon — Settief    it 
Eversley— Parish  Work— Letters jf 


1 2  Contents. 

CHAPTER  V 

1842 — 1843. 
Aged  23-24. 

I  yon 
Curale  Life — Letter  from  Colonel  W. — Brighter  Prospects--  Joi  espondence 
Renewed — Promise  of  Preferment — Leaves  E\  ersley ir, 

CHAPTER  VI. 

1844 — 1847. 
Aged  25-28. 

Marriage — Curacy  of  Pimperne — Rectory  of  Eversley — Correspondence    ..       ^^^ 

CHAPTER  Vn. 

T848. 
Aged  29. 

Publication  of  "  Saint's  Tragedy  " — Chartist  Riots — Tenth  of  April — Politics 
for  the  People — Professorship  at  Queen's  College — "  Yeast  " — Illn,ess  ....     9? 

CHAPTER   VHI. 

1849. 

Aged  30. 

Wjiter  in  Devonshire — Ilfracombe — Decides  on  taking  Pupils— Correspon- 
dence— Visit  to  London — Social  Questions — Fever  at  Eversley — Renewed 
Illness — Returns  to  Devonshire — Cholera  in  England — Sanitary  Work — 
Bermondsey — Letter  from  Mr.  C.  K.  Paul Ill 

CHAPTER  IX. 

1850— 1851. 

Aged  31-32. 

Resigns  the  Office  of  Clerk  in  Orders  at  Chelsea — Pur'l  Life  at  Eversley— 
Publication  of  "  Alton  Locke" — Letters  from  M  Carlyle — Writes  for 
"Christian  Socialist" — Troubled  State  of  the  Country — Burglaries — 
Th-  Rectory  Attacked ...       i«7 


Conte7iis.  <  1 3 

CHAPTER  X. 

1851. 
Aged  t^z. 

"AG! 

0\  er.ing  cf  the  Great  Exhibition — Attack  on  "  Yeast  "  in  the  "  Guardian  "  and 
Rcpij  —Occurrence  in  a  London  Church — Goes  to  Germany— Letter  from 
Mr.  John  Martineau 135 


CHAPTER  XI. 

1S52. 
Aged  2,Z- 

Strike  m  the  Iron-Trade — Correspondence  on  Social  and  Metaphysical  Ques- 
tions— Mr.  Erskine  comes  to  Fir  Grove — Parson  Lot's  last  Words — Birth 
of  his  youngest  Daughter — Letter  from  Frederika  Bremer i6c 


CHAPTER  XII. 

1853- 
Aged  34. 

TTie   Rector  in  his  Church — "  Hypatia"  Letters  from  Chevalier  Bunsen — Mr. 
Maurice's  Theological  Essays — Correspondence  with  Thomas  Cooper...   174 


CHAPTER   Xni. 

1854. 
Aged  35. 

Torquay —Seaside  Studies— Lectures  in  Edinburgh — Deutsche  TlieoHg'N  •  • 
Letter  from  Baron  Bunsen — Crimean  War — Settles  in  North  Devor. — 
Writes  "  Wonders  of  the  Shore  "  and  "  Westward  Ho." 2c; 


14.  .  Contents. 

CHAPTER    XIV. 

Aged  36. 

8i  leford — Crimean  War — Death  of  his  friend  Charles  Blaclford  Mansfield — 
"Westward  Ho" — Letters  from  Mr.  Henry  Drumniond  and  Rajah 
Brooke—  Dra-A-ing  Class  for  Mechanics  at  Bideford — Leaves  Devonshire 
— Lectures  to  Ladies  in  London — Correspondence — Winter  at  Farley 
Court — The  "  Heroes"  Written aij 


CHAPTER    XV. 

1856. 

Aged  37. 

Wintei  at  Farley  Court--Letter  from  a  Sailor  at  Hong  Kong — Union  Strikes 
—Fishing  Poem  and  Fishing  Flies — The  Sabbath  Question — Invitation 
to  Snowdonia — Visit  to  North  Wales — American  Visitors — Preface  to 
Tauler's  Sermons aj 


CHAPTER    XVI. 

The  Father  in  his  Home — An  Atmosphere  of  Joy — The  Out-door  Nursery — 
Life  on  the  Mount — P'ear  and  I'alsehood — The  Training  of  Love — Favor- 
ites and  Friends  in  the  House,  in  the  Stable,  and  on  the  Lawn aSJ 


CHAPTER  XVn. 

1857- 
Aged  38. 

Two  Vears  Ago  "—The  Crowded  Church— Unquiet  Sundays— Letters  to 
Mr.  Bullar— Dr.  Rigg— Mr.  Tom  Hughes'  Pietists  and  0u/iof— Letter  froro 
ft  Naval  Cliaplain— Indian  Mutiny— The  Romance  ot  Real  Life aoj 


CoiiUnis.  T  5 

CHAl'TKR  XVIII. 
1858. 

Agkd  39. 

ETcrf.ley  '.Vo-k — Diphtheria — Lectures  rind  Sei  nons  at  Aldcrshot — Hlessing 
the  Colors  of  the  22nd  Regiment — Staff  CjUege — Advanced  Tin  ikers— 
Ponins  and  Santa  Maura — Letter  from  Dr.  Monsell — Letters  to  D-..  Moii- 
sell,  Dean  Stanley,  &c. — Letter  from  Captain  Congreve — Birth  of  nis  Sou 
Grenville — Secon  i  Visit  to  Yorkshire 278 


CHAPTER    XIX. 
.1859. 

AOKD    40. 

Sanitary  Work — First  Sermon  at  Buckingham  Palace — Queen's  Chaplaincy 
— First  Visit  to  Windsor — Letter  to  an  Atheist — Correspondence  with 
Artists — Ciiarh's  Bennett— Ladies'  Sanitary  Association — Letter  from 
John  Stuart  M     284 


CHAPTER  XX. 

t86o. 
Aged  41. 

Professorship  of  Modern  History — Death  of  his  Father  and  of  Mrs.  Anthony 
Fronde — Planting  the  Churchyard — Visit  to  Ireland — First  Salmon  killed 
— Wet  Summer — Sermon  on  Weather — Letter  from  Sir  Charles  Lyell — 
Correspondence — Residence  in  Cambridge — Inaugural  Lecture  in  the 
Senate  House — Visits  to  Barton  Hall — Letter  from  Sir  Charles  Bunbury.    yj 


CHAPTER   XXI. 

1861— 1862. 
Aged  42-43. 

Cambridge — Lectures  to  the  Prince  of  Wales — Essays  and  Reviews — Letters 
to  Dr.  Stanley — Bishop  of  Winchester — Tracts  for  Priests  and  People — • 
Death  of  the  Prince  Consort — Letter  to  Sir  C.  Bunbury — The  Water- 
babies — Installation  Ode  at  Cambridge — Visit  tc  Scotland — British  Asso- 
ciation— Lord  Dundreary "Kit 


1 6  Contents. 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

1863. 
Aged  44. 

r«MoA-  of  the  Geological  Society — Work  at  Cambridge — Prince  of  Wales  s 
Wedding — Wellington  College  Chapel  and  Museum — Letter  from  Dr. 
Benson — Lecture  at  Wellington — Letters  to  Sir  Charles  Lyell,  Prof. 
Huxley,  Charles  Darwin,  James  A.  Froude,  &c. — Whitchurch  Still-life 
— Toads  in  Holes — D.C.L.  Degree  at  Oxford — Bishop  Colenso — Sermons 
OD  the  Pentateuch — The  Water-babies — Failing  Health j3< 


CHAPTER  XXin. 

1864 — 1865. 
AcKi)  45-46. 

Illness — Controversy  with  Dr.  Newman — Apologia — Juurncy  to  the  .South  of 
France — Biarritz — Pau — An  Earthquake — Narhonne — Sermons  in  London 
and  at  Windsor — Enclosure  of  Eversley  Common — University  Sermons 
at  Cambridge — Mr.  John  Stuart  Mill's  London  Committee — Letter  on 
the  Trinity  — Letter  on  Subscription — Luther  and  Demonology — Visit  of 
Queen  Emma  of  the  Sandwich  Islands  to  Eversley  Rectory  and  Welling- 
ton College — The  Mammoth  on  Ivory — Death  of  King  Leopold — Lines 
written  at  Windsor  Castle -,\i 


CHAPTER   XXIV. 
1866 — 1867. 

ACKD  47-48. 

Cambridge — Death  of  Dr.  Whewell — The  American  Professorship — Monoto- 
nous Life  of  the  Country  Laboring  Class — Penny  Readings— Strange 
Correspondents — Life  of  Bewick- Letters  to  Max  Muller — The  Jews  in 
Cornwall — The  Meteor  Sho\ver--Letter  to  Professor  Adams — The  House 
of  Lords — A  Father's  Education  of  his  Son — "  Fraser's  Magazine" — Bird 
life.  Wood  Wrens — Names  and  Places — Darwinism— Beauty  of  Color, 
ks  influence  and  Attractions— Flat-Fish — Ice  P.-oblems— St.  Andrews 
*nd  British  Association — Abergeldie  Castle — Rules  for  Stammerers 3<»j 


Contents.  ly 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

1868. 

Aged  49. 

PAGl 

Attacks  of  the  f^ess— Lectures  on  Sixteenth  Century— Mr.  Longft  llo^v— Sir 
Henry  Ta) lor  on  Crime  and  its  Punishn-.ent — Letter  from  Mt.  Dunn — 
Letter  from  Rev.  William  Harrison .  ...  386 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

1869 — 1870. 

Aged  50-51. 

Resignation  of  Professorship — Women's  Suffrage  Question — Letters  to  Mr. 
Maurice,  John  Stuart  Mill — Canonry  o£  Chester — Social  Science  Meeting 
at  Bristol — Letter  from  Dr.  E.  Blackwell — Medical  Education  for  Women 
— West  Indian  Voyage — Letters  from  Trinidad — Return  Home — Eversley 
a  Changed  Place — Flying  Columns — Heath  Fires — First  Residence  at 
Chester — Botanical  Class — Field  Lectures — Women's  Suffrage — Franco- 
Prussian  War — Wallace  on  Natural  Selection — Matthew  Arnold  and 
Hellenism 39J 


CHAPTER   XXVH. 

1871. 
Aged  52. 

Lecture  on  "  The  Theology  of  the  Future  "  at  Sion  College — Expeditions  ot 
the  Chester  Natural  Science  Society — Lectures  on  Town  Geology — Race 
Week  at  Chester — Letters  on  Betting — Camp  at  Bramshill — The  Prince 
of  Wales  in  Eversley — Prince  of  Wales's  Illness — Lecture  to  Royal  Artil 
lery  Officers  at  Woolwich 431 


CHAPTER   XXVin. 

1872. 
Aged  53. 

Opening  of  Chester  Cathedral  Nave — Deaths  of  Mr.  Maurice  and  Norman 
McLeod— Letters  to  Max  Muller — Mrs.  Luard — Lecture  at  Birmingham 
•'id  its  Results — Lecture  on  Heroism  at  Chester — A  Poem — The  Athana- 

■i^n  Creed 434 

2 


1 8  Contents, 

CHAPTER   XXIX. 

,873—1874. 
AOKD   54-55- 

PAll 

Ha;row-on-the-Hill  — Canonry  of  Westminster  — His  Son's  Return— His 
Mother's  Death— Parting  from  Chester — Congratulations — Sermon  and 
Letters  on  Temperance — Preaching  in  Westminster  Abbey — Voyage  to 
America— Eastern  Cities  and  Western  Plair.s— Canada -Niagara— The 
Prairie — Salt  Lake  City — Yo  Semite  Valley  and  Big  Trees — San  Fran- 
cisco— Illness — Rocky  Mountains  and  Colorado  Springs — Last  Poem — 
Return  Home — Letter  from  John  G.  Whittier 441 


CHAPTER   XXX. 

1874-5- 

Aged  55. 

kt'Turn  from  America— Work  at  Eversley— Illness  at  Westminster— New 
Anxiety — Last  Sermons  in  the  Abbey — Leaves  the  Cloisters  for  ever — 
Last  Return  to  Eversley— The  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death — Last 
niness  and  Departure— The  Victory  of  Life  over  Death  and  Time 474 


LIST    OF   ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Portrait  cf  Charles  Kingsley Frontispiece. 

PAGH 

Fac-similb  of  thb  Origj^taiL  Manuscript  of  the  Three  Fishers...  156 

EvERSLEY  Church 175 

The  Great  Fir-Trees  on  the  Rectory  Lawn  at  Evbrsley 256 

The  Rectory  at  Everslby 263 

The  Study  Window,  Everslby  Rectory 396 

Charles  Kincsley's  Gravs,  Eversley  Church  yard 488 


CHARLES  KINGSLEY- 

HIS    LETTERS    AND    MEMORIES    OF    HIS   LIFE. 


CHAPTER  I. 


Birth  and  Parentage — Inherited  Talents — Removal  from  Devonshire  to  Burtcn 
on-Trent — Clifton — Barnack  and  its  Traditions — First  Sermon  and  Poems- 
Childish  Character — Effect  of  Fen  Scenery  on  his  Mind. 

Charles  Kingsley,  son  of  Charles  Kingsley,  of  Battramsley  in 
the  New  Forest,  was  born  on  the  12th  of  June,  1819,  at  Holne 
Vicarage,  under  the  brow  of  Dartmoor,  Devonshire.  His  family 
claimed  descent  from  the  Kingsleys  of  Kingsley  or  Vale  Royal,  in 
Delamere  Forest,  and  from  Rannulph  de  Kingsley,  whose  name  in 
an  old  family  pedigree  stands  as  "  Grantee  of  the  Forest  of  Mara 
and  Mondrem  from  Randall  Meschines,  ante  1128."  Charles's 
father  was  a  man  of  cultivation  and  refinement,  a  good  linguist,  an 
artist,  a  keen  sportsman  and  natural  historian.  He  was  educated 
at  Harrow  and  Oxford,  and  brought  up  with  good  expectations  as 
a  country  gentleman,  but  having  been  early  in  life  left  an  orphan, 
and  his  fortune  squandered  for  him  during  his  minority,  he  soon 
spent  what  was  left,  and  at  the  age  of  thirty  found  himself  almost 
penniless,  and  obliged,  for  the  first  time,  to  think  of  a  ]7rofe=sion. 
]>cing  too  old  for  the  army,  and  having  many  friends  who  were 
owners  of  Church  property,  he  decided  on  the  Church,  sold  his 
hunters  and  land,  and  with  a  young  wife,  went  for  a  second  time 
to  college,  entering  his  name  at  Trinity  Hall,  Cambridge,  to  read 
for  Holy  Orders.  While  there  he  became  acquainted  with  Dr. 
Herbert  Marsh,  then  Margaret  Professor  of  Divinity,  afterwards 
Bishop  of  Peterborough,  a  fine  classic  an«l  first-rate  German 
scholar.      This   last   taste,    combined   witli    tl-eit   mu'^uAl  love  o( 


2  2  Charles  Kijigsley. 

literature,  attracted  the  two  men  to  each  other,  and  when  Dr. 
Marsh  was  raised  to  a  bishopric  he  took  an  early  opportunity  of 
getting  Mr.  Kingsley  into  his  diocese,  and  making  him  his  Examin- 
ing Chaplain.  His  first  cure  was  in  the  Fens,  from  which  he 
removed  to  Holne,  in  Devonshire. 

Charles's  mother,  a  remarkable  woman,  full  of  poetry  and 
enthusiasm,  was  born  in  the  West  Indies,  being  the  daughter  o/ 
Nathan  Lucas,  of  Farley  Hall,  Barbadoes,  and  Rushford  Lodge, 
Norfolk.  Keenly  alive  to  the  charms  of  scenery,  and  highly 
imaginative  in  her  younger  days,  as  she  was  eminently  practical  in 
inaturer  life,  she  believed  that  impressions  made  on  her  own  mind, 
before  the  birth  of  this  child  for  whose  coming  she  longed,  by  the 
romantic  surroundings  of  her  Devonshire  home,  would  be  mysteri- 
ously transmitted  to  him  ;  and  in  tliis  faith,  and  for  his  sake  as 
well  as  for  her  own,  she  luxuriated  in  the  exquisite  scenery  of 
Holne  and  Dartmoor,  the  Chase,  the  hills,  and  the  lovely  Dart, 
which  flowed  below  the  grounds  of  the  little  parsonage,  and  gave 
herself  up  to  the  enjoyment  of  every  sight  and  sound  which  she 
hoped  would  be  dear  to  her  child  in  after  life.  These  hopes  wert 
realized,  and  though  her  little  son  left  Holne  when  lie  was  six 
weeks  old,  and  never  saw  his  birthplace  till  he  was  a  man  of  thirty, 
it  and  every  Devonshire  scene  and  association  had  a  mysterious 
charm  for  him  through  hfe.  "  I  am,"  he  was  proud  to  say,  "  a 
West  Country  man  born  and  bred." 

"  We  know,  through  the  admirable  labors  of  Mr.  Galton,"  says 
Mr.  Darwin  in  his  "Descent  of  Man,"  "  that  genius  which  implies 
a  wonderfully  complex  combination  of  high  faculties  tends  to  be 
inherited,"  and  to  prove  this  in  the  case  of  Charles  Kingsley  may 
not  be  altogetlier  unimportant.  "  We  are,"  he  said  himself,  in 
1865,  when  writing  to  Mr.  Galton  on  his  book  on  Hereditarj 
Talent,  where  the  Kingsley  family  are  referred  to, 

*'  We  are  but  the  disjecta  membra  of  a  most  remarkable  pair  cl 
parents.  Our  talent,  such  as  it  is,  is  altogether  hereditary.  ^^y 
father  was  a  magnificent  man  in  body  and  mind,  and  was  said  to 
possess  every  talent  except  that  of  using  his  talents.  My  mother, 
on  the  contrary,  had  a  quite  extraordinary  practical  and  adminis- 
trative power  ;  and  she  combines  with  it,  even  at  her  advanced 
age  (79),  my  father's  passion  for  knowledge,  and  the  sentiment  and 
frtUcy  of  a  young  girl."     .... 


Inherited   Tastes.  23 

Fiom  his  father's  side  he  inherited  his  love  of  art,  his  sporting 
tastes,  his  fighting  blood — the  men  of  his  family  having  been 
soldiers  for  generations,  some  of  them  having  led  troops  to  battle 
at  Naseby,  Minden,  and  elsewhere.  And  from  the  mother's  side 
came,  not  only  his  love  of  travel,  science  and  literature,  and  the 
romance  of  his  nature,  but  his  keen  sense  of  humor,  and  a 
force  and  originality  which  characterized  the  women  of  her 
family  of  a  still  older  generation. 

His  maternal  grandfather,  sometime  a  Judge  in  Barbadoes,  was 
a  man  of  books  and  science,  the  intimate  friend  of  Sir  Joseph 
Banks  and  the  distinguished  John  Hunter.  He  was  also  a  great 
traveller,  and  had  often  crossed  the  Atlantic,  in  those  days  a 
more  difficult  work  than  it  is  now.  He  knew  the  West  Indies 
intimately,  and  Demerara,  where  also  he  had  estates,  and  had 
been  with  his  friend  Lord  Rodney,  on  board  H.M.S.  "Formi- 
dable," in  his  great  naval  engagement  off  St.  Lucia  in  1782,  "on 
the  glorious  12th  of  April,  when  he  broke  Count  de  Grasse's  line, 
destroying  seven  French  ships  of  war  and  taking  their  com 
mander  prisoner." — ("At  Last,"  Vol.  L  p.  69).  In  1812,  at  the 
great  eruption  of  the  Souffriere  of  St.  Vincent,  when  resident  on 
his  estate  in  Barbadoes,  eighty  miles  distant,  Judge  Lucas  gave 
proof  of  his  powers  of  observation  and  of  scientific  induction,  by 
at  once  detecting  the  cause  of  the  great  earthquake  wave  which 
struck  the  island,  and  of  the  sudden  darkness  which  spread  terror 
among  its  inhabitants.  "  I  have  a  letter,"  says  his  grandson,  "  writ- 
ten by  one  long  since  dead,  who  had  powers  of  description  of  no 
common  order,"  detailing  the  events  of  that  awful  day  and  night, 
and  who,  while  the  negroes  were  shrieking  in  the  streets,  and 
even  the  white  folks  caught  the  panic,  and  were  praying  at  home 
and  in  the  churches  as  they  had  never  prayed  before,  thinking  the 
last  day  had  come,  was  above  the  dismay  and  superstitious  panic 
which  prevailed  ;  "  he  opened  his  window,  found  it  stick,  and  felt 
upon  the  sill  a  coat  of  soft  pouder.  'The  volcano  at  St.  Vin- 
cent has  broken  out  at  last,'  said  the  wise  man,  'and  this  is  tiie 
dust  of  it.'  So  he  quieted  his  household  and  his  negroes,  lighted 
his  candles,  and  went  to  his  scientific  books  in  that  delight,  mingled 
with  awe  not  the  less  deep  because  it  is  rational  and  self-possessed, 
wilh  which  he,  like  other  men  of  science,  looked  at  the  wonder? 
of  this  wondrous  world." — ("At  Last,"  Vol.  I.  p.  89). 


24  Charles  Kingsley. 

His  grandfatlier's  reminiscences  of  the  old  war  times,  and  stone* 
of  tropical  scenes,  were  the  delight  of  Charles's  boyhood,  and  grive 
a  coloring  to  his  life.  They  woke  up  in  him  that  longing  to  see  the 
West  Indies,  which  was  at  last  accomplished  ;  and  as  he  sailed  the 
same  seas  under  more  peaceful  circumstances,  his  enjoyment  was 
enhanced  by  family  associations  and  memories  of  the  Past. 

Rut  to  return,  Mr.  Kingsley's  next  curacy  on  leaving  Holne  was 
at  Burton- on-Trent,  from  whence  he  moved  to  Clifton,  in  Notting- 
hamshire, where  he  and  his  wife  formed  the  acquaintance  of  the 
Penrose  family.  To  this  fact  Miss  Martineau  alludes  in  her  cor- 
respondence with  his  son  35  years  later. 

"  This  evening  I  have  heard  of  you  in  your  infancy  !  fs  that 
not  odd  ?  The  Arnolds  have  just  returned  after  a  two  months' 
absence,  and  1  went  to  Fox  How  to  welcome  them  home.  They 
have  been  into  Lincolnshire,  at  the  Penroses'.  They  say  your 
parents  were  friends  of  the  last  generation  of  the  Penroses,  and 
they  have  been  looking  over  some  old  letters,  in  one  of  which 
there  is  an  account  of  a  stormy  passage  of  a  river  (the  Trent  in 
flood),  wnen  your  mother's  chief  anxiety  was  about  her  '  little  deli- 
cate Charles,'  whom  she  wrapped  in  her  shawl,  going  without  it 
herself.  So  now,  perhaps  we  know  something  about  you  that  you 
did  not  know  yourself." 

While  curate  of  Clifton,  the  Bishop  of  Peterborough  offered  his 
friend  the  living  of  Barnack,  one  of  the  best  in  the  diocese,  to 
hold  for  his  own  son  Herbert,  then  only  17.  Such  transactions 
were  common  in  the  church  in  those  days,  and  Mr.  Kingsley, 
thankfully,  accepted  the  otfer,  and  held  the  living  for  6  years 
Barnack  Rectory  was  a  fine  old  house,  built  in  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, and  thither  the  family  removed.  It  contained  a  celebrated 
havmted  room  called  Button  Cap's,  into  which  little  Charles  op 
one  occasion  was  moved  when  ill  of  brain  fever,  which  he  had 
more  than  once,  as  a  child.  This  naturally  excited  his  imagina- 
tion, which  was  haunted  years  afterwards  with  the  weird  sights  and 
sounds  connected  with  that  time  in  his  memory.  To  this  he  traced 
his  own  strong  disbelief  in  the  existence  of  ghosts.  For,  as  he 
used  to  say  to  his  children  in  later  years,  he  had  heard  too  many 
ghosts  in  old  Button  Cap's  room  at  Barnack,  to  have  much  respect 
for  them,  when  he  had  once  satisfied  himself  as  to  what  they  really 
weie.      On   being  questioned  about  having  been  born  thtie  bj 


Barnack  and  its   Ghost  Chamber.  25 

Mrs.  Francis  Pelham,  he  gave  her  his  matured  opinion  of  Batten 
Cap  in  the  following  letter  : 

EVERSLEY   ReoTORY, 

•'  My  DEAR  Alice, —  Jti'te  2, 1864. 

"  Of  Button  Cap — he  lived  in  the  Great  North  Room  at  Bar- 
nack (where  I  was  not  born).  I  knew  him  well.  He  used  to 
walk  across  the  room  in  flopping  slippers,  and  turn  over  the  leaves 
of  books  to  find  the  missing  deed,  whereof  he  had  defrauded  the 
orphan  and  the  widow.  He  was  an  old  Rector  of  Barnack. 
Everybody  heard  him  who  chose.  Nobody  ever  saw  him  ;  but  in 
spite  of  that,  he  wore  a  flowered  dressing-gown,  and  a  cap  with  a 
button  on  it.  I  never  heard  of  any  skeleton  being  found  ;  and 
Button  Cap's  history  had  nothing  to  do  with  murder,  only  with 
avarice  and  cheatmg. 

"  Sometimes  he  turned  cross  and  played  Polter-geist,  as  the 
Germans  say,  rolling  the  barrels  in  the  cellar  about  with  surprising 
noise,  which  was  undignified.  So  he  was  always  ashamed  of  him- 
self, and  put  them  all  back  in  their  places  before  morning. 

"  I  suppose  he  is  gone  now.  Ghosts  hate  mortally  a  certificated 
National  Schoolmaster,  and  (being  a  vain  and  peevish  generation) 
as  soon  as  peojjle  give  up  believing  in  them,  go  away  in  a  huff — or 
perhaps  some  one  had  been  laying  phosphoric  paste  about,  and  he 
ate  thereof  and  ran  down  to  the  pond  ;  and  drank  till  he  burst. 
He  was  rats.  "  Your  affect.  Uncle, 

"C.    KiNGSLEY." 

Charles  was  a  precocious  child,  and  his  poems  and  sermons  date 
from  four  years  old.  His  delight  was  to  make  a  little  pulpit  in  his 
nursery,  arranging  the  chairs  for  an  imaginary  congregation,  and 
putting  on  his  pinafore  as  a  surplice,  gave  little  addresses  of  a 
rather  severe  tone  of  theology.  His  mother,  unknown  to  him, 
took  them  down  at  the  time,  and  showed  them  to  the  Bishop.of 
Peterborough,  who  thought  them  so  remarkable  for  such  a  young 
child,  that  he  begged  they  might  be  preserved  :  predicting  that  the 
boy  would  grow  up  to  be  no  common  man.  I'hese  are  among  the 
specimens  his  mother  kept. 

FIRST  SERMON. 

[Four  years  old.] 

"  It  is  not  right  to  fight.  Honesty  has  no  chance  against  steal- 
ing Christ  has  shown  us  true  religion.  We  nuist  follow  God, 
and  not  follow  the  Devil,  for  if  we  follow  the  Devil  we  shall  go 
into  that  everlasting  fire,  and  if  we  follow  God,  we  shall  go  to 
Heaven.     When  the  tempte*  came  to  Christ  in  the  Wilderness, 


26  Chayles  Kings  ley. 

and  told  him  to  make  the  stones  into  bread,  he  said,  Get  tliee 
behind  me,  Satan.  He  has  given  us  a  sign  and  an  example  how 
we  should  overcome  the  Devil.  It  is  written  in  the  Bible  that  we 
should  love  our  neighbor,  and  not  covet  his  house,  nor  his  ox,  noi 
his  ass,  nor  his  wife,  nor  anything  that  is  his.  It  is  to  a  certainty 
that  we  cannot  describe  how  thousands  and  ten  thousands  have 
been  wicked ;  and  nobody  can  tell  how  the  Devil  can  be  cluiined 
in  Hell.  Nor  can  we  describe  how  many  men  and  women  and 
children  have  been  good.  And  if  we  go  to  Heaven  we  shall  find 
them  all  singing  to  God  in  the  highest.  And  if  we  go  to  hell,  we 
shall  find  all  the  wicked  ones  gnashing  and  wailing  their  teeth,  as 
God  describes  in  the  Bible.  If  humanity,  honesty,  and  good 
religion  fade,  we  can  to  a  certainty  get  them  back,  by  being  good 
again.  Religion  is  reading  good  books,  doing  good  actions,  and 
not  telling  lies  and  speaking  evil,  and  not  calling  their  brother  Fool 
and  Raca.  And  if  we  rebel  against  God,  He  will  to  a  certainty 
cast  us  into  hell.  And  one  day,  when  a  great  generation  of  people 
came  to  Christ  in  the  Wilderness,  he  said,  Yea  ye  genei  ation  of 
vipers  J " 

FIRST  POEMS. 
[Four  years  and  eight  months  old.  ] 

MORNING. 
When  morning's  beam  first  lights  us, 
And  the  cock's  shrill  voice  is  undone. 
The  owl  flies  from  her  retreat, 
And  the  bat  does  fly  away, 
And  morning's  beam  lightens  every  spray 
The  sun  shows  forth  his  splendid  train. 
Everybody  is  rising ; 
Boys  and  girls  go  to  school ; 
Everybody  is  at  work  ; 
•  Everybody  is  busy. 

The  bee  wakes  from  her  sleep  to  gatlier  honey, 
But  the  drone  and  the  queen  bee  lie  still 
In  the  hive, 
And  a  bee  guards  them. 
Be  busy  when  thou  canst  I 

NIGHT. 

When  the  dark  forest  glides  along, 
When  midnight's  gloom  makes  everylx»dy  stU^ 
The  owl  flies  out, 
And  the  bat  stretches  his  wing  ; 

The  lion  roars ; 
The  wolf  and  the  tiger  prowl  about. 
And  llie  Inena  cries. 


Early  Letters.  27 

Little  csn  be  gleaned  of  the  nursery  life  at  Barnacle,  except 
from  an  old  nurse  who  lived  in  his  father's  family,  and  (vho  remem- 
bers Charles  as  a  very  delicate  child  betwcer.  six  and  seven  years 
old,  subject  to  dangerous  attacks  of  croup,  and  remarkable  for  his 
thirst  for  knowledge  and  conscientiousness  of  feeling. 

"  I  have  never  forgotten  one  day,"  she  says,  "  when  he  and  hij 
little  brothers  were  playing  together,  and  had  a  difference,  which 
seldom  happened.  His  mother,  coming  into  the  room,  took  the 
brothers'  part,  which  he  resented,  and  he  said  he  wished  she  was 
not  his  mother.  His  grief  afterwards  was  great,  and  he  came  cry- 
ing bitterly  to  the  kitchen  door  to  ask  me  to  take  him  up  to  his 
room.  The  housemaid  enquired  what  was  the  matter,  and  said 
his  mamma  would  be  sure  to  forgive  him.  '  She  has  forgiven  me, 
but  don't  cant,  Elizabeth  (I  saw  you  blush).  It  isn't  manmia's  for- 
giveness I  want,  but  God's.'  Poor  little  fellow,  he  was  soon  upon 
his  knees  when  he  got  into  his  mother's  room  where  he  slept." 

A  boy  friend,  now  a  clergyman  in  Essex,  recalls  him  about 
this  time,  repeating  his  Eatin  lesson  to  his  father  in  the  study  a1 
Barnack,  with  his  eyes  fixed  all  the  time  on  the  fire  in  the  grate. 
At  last  he  could  stand  it  no  longer  ;  there  was  a  pause  in  the  Latin, 
and  Charles  cried  out,  "I  do  declare,  papa,  there  is  pyrites  in  the 
coal." 

Among  the  few  relics  of  the  Barnack  days  is  a  little  love  letter 
written  when  he  was  five  or  six  years  old,  which  has  lately  come  to 
light,  having  been  carefully  treasured  for  fifty  years  by  a  lady  who 
was  often  staying  with  his  parents  at  that  time,  and  who  captivated 
the  cliild  by  her  kindness  and  great  beauty. 

Barnack. 

"  Mv  DEAR  Miss  Dade, — 

"  1  hope  you  are  well  is  fanny  well  ?  The  house  is  com- 
p.Llly  changed  since  you  went.  I  think  it  is  nearly  3  months 
since  you  went.  Mamma  sends  her  love  to  you  and  sally  browne 
Herbert  and  geraled  (his  brothers)  but  I  must  stop  here,  because  I 
have  more  letters  of  consequence  to  write  &  here  I  must  pause. 

"  Believe  me  always, 

"  Your  sincere  friend. 
To  Miss  Dade.  "  Charles  Kingsley.'' 

The  subject  of  his  childish  affection  recalled  herself  to  him  thirty 
years  later,  and  the  answer  contains  the  only  other  mention  of  Ba,* 
nack  in  hi«  own  hand. 


*8  Charles  Kings  ley, 

Farley  Coukt, 

November  2";,  1855. 

"My  dear  Madam, — 

"  Many  thanks  for  your  most  kind  letter,  which  awoke  in  mj 
mind  a  hundred  sleeping  recollections.  Those  old  Barnack  years 
seem  now  like  a  dream — perhaps  because  having  lost  the  two 
brothers  who  were  there  with  me,  anecdotes  of  the  place  have  not 
been  kept  up.  Yet  I  remember  every  stone  and  brick  of  it,  and 
you,  too,  as  one  of  the  first  persons  of  whom  I  have  a  clear  remem- 
brance, though  your  face  has  faded,  I  am  ashamed  to  say,  froiu 
my  memory. 

'•'■  But  I  am  delighted  to  hear  that  my  books  have  pleased,  and 
s»lil  more  that  they  have  comforted  you.  They  have  been  written 
from  my  heart  in  the  hope  of  doing  good  ;  and  now  and  then  I 
have  (as  I  have  now  from  you)  testimony  that  my  life  as  yet  has 
not  been  altogether  useless 

"  I  am  just  bringing  out  a  Christmas  book  for  my  children  with 
illustrations  of  my  own.  Will  you  accept  a  copy,  and  allow  nie 
to  renew  our  old  friendship  ?  .  .  .  .  You  speak  of  sorrows, 
and  I  have  heard  you  have  past  through  many.  God  grant  that  a 
quiet  evening  may  succeed,  for  you,  a  stormy  day.  I  am  shocked 
at  the  amount  of  misery  in  a  world  which  has,  as  yet,  treated  me 
so  kindly.  Yet  it  is  but  a  sign  that  others  are  nearer  to  God  than 
I,  and  therefore  more  chastened. 

"Yours  ever  truly, 

"  C.    KiNGSLEY." 

In  1830,  when  Charles  was  eleven  years  old,  his  father  had  to 
give  up  Barnack  to  his  successor.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Kingsley's  parish 
work  is  still  remembered  there  with  affectionate  respect,  and  they 
and  their  parishioners  parted  with  mutual  regret.  In  after  years 
Professor  Hall  speaks  of  "Charles's  excellent  father  as  a  type  of 
the  old  English  clergyman  where  the  country  gentleman  forms  the 
basis  of  the  character  which  the  minister  of  the  gospel  completes. 
Of  such  a  class,"  he  says,  "  were  the  Bishop  (Otter)  of  Chiches- 
ter, Mr.  Penrose,  and  Mr.  Kingsley."  Having  caught  ague  in  the 
Fens,  Mr.  Kingsley  was  advised  to  try  the  climate  of  Devonshire, 
and  moved  his  family  to  Ilfracombe.  But  the  Fen  scenery  was 
never  obliterated  from  Charles's  mind.  It  was  connected,  too,  with 
his  ea-liest  sporting  recollections,  for  his  father,  while  an  excellent 
parish  priest,  was  a  keen  sportsman,  and  as  soon  as  the  boy  waS 
old  enough,  he  was  mounted  on  his  father's  horse  in  front  of  the 
keeper  on  shooting  days  to  bring  back  the  game  bag. 

Wild  duck,  and  even   bittern  and  bustard,  were  to  te  found  it 


Hercivard  the    Wake,  29 

those  days  before  the  draining  of  the  Fen,  and  butterflies  of  species 
now  extinct,  were  not  uncommon,  and  used  to  delight  the  eyes  of 
the  young  naturalist.  The  sunsets  of  the  Great  Fen,  all  the  more 
striking  from  the  wide  sweep  of  horizon,  were  never  forgotten,  and 
tlie  low  flat  scenery  had  always  a  charm  for  him  in  after  life  from 
the  memory  of  those  days. 

Thus  the  seeds  were  sown  of  the  story  r,f  Here  ward  the  Wake, 
written  in  after  years,  produced  by  the  scenes  and  ti  aditions  of 
this  period  of  boyhood. 


CHAPTER    II. 

1830-1838. 
Aged  11-19. 

Life  at  (Jovelly— School  Life  at  Clifton— Bristol  Ric  s— Thei  Effect  on  hill  Mind 
— Helstoc — Early  Friendships — Letters  from  Rev.  Dnwent  Culeridgc  and 
Rev.  R.  C.  Powles— Move  to  Chelsea— Enters  King's  v'ollege,  London. 

While  the  late  rector  of  Barnacle  was  staying  at  Ilfracombe,  Sii 
James  Hatnlyn  Williams,  of  Clovelly  Court,  presented  him  to  the 
living  of  Clovelly,  which  he  held  till  he  removed  to  the  rectory  of 
St.  Luke's,  Chelsea,  in  1836. 

Here  a  fresh  life  opened  for  Charles,  whose  impressions  of  nature 
had  hitherto  been  gathered  from  the  Eastern  Counties  and  the 
scenery  of  the  Fens.  A  new  education  began  for  him,  a  new  world 
was  revealed  to  him.  The  contrast  between  the  sturdy  Fen  men 
and  the  sailors  and  fishermen  of  Clovelly — between  the  flat  Eastern 
Counties  and  the  rocky  Devonshire  coast,  with  its  rich  vegetation^ 
its  new  fauna  and  flora,  and  the  blue  sea  with  its  long  Atlantic 
swell,  filled  him  with  delight  and  wonder.  The  boys  had  their  boat 
and  their  ponies,  and  Charles  at  once  plunged  into  the  study  of 
conchology,  under  the  kind  and  scientific  teaching  of  Dr.  Turton, 
who  lived  in  the  neighborhood. 

His  parents,  both  people  of  excitable  natures  and  poetic  feeling, 
shared  in  the  boy's  enthusiasm.  The  new  elements  of  their  life  at 
Clovelly,  the  unique  scenery,  the  impressionable  character  of  the 
people  and  their  singular  beauty,  the  courage  of  the  men  and  boys, 
and  the  passionate  sympathy  of  the  women  in  the  wild  life  of  their 
husbands  and  sons,  threw  the  new  charm  of  romance  over  their 
parish  work.  The  people  sprang  to  touch  the  more  readily  under 
the  influence  of  a  man,  who,  physically  their  equal,  feared  no  danger  ^ 
and  could  steer  a  boat,  hoist  and  lower  a  sail,  '  shoot '  a  herring  net, 
and  haul  a  seine  as  one  of  themselves. 

His  ministrations  in  church  and  in  the  cottages  were  acceptable 


Studying  at  Home.  ^\ 

ro  dissenteis  as  well  as  church  peoi)le.  And  when  the  herring  fleet 
put  to  sea,  whatever  the  weather  might  be,  the  Rector,  acconi- 
nanied  by  his  wife  and  boys,  would  start  off  "  down  street,"  for 
the  Quay,  to  give  a  short  parting  service,  at  which  "mtn  who 
worked,"  and  "women  who  wept,"  would  join  in  singing  out  oi 
the  old  Prayer  Book  version  the  121st  Psalm  as  those  only  can/ 
who  have  death  and  danger  staring  them  in  the  face  ;  and  who^ 
"  though  storms  be  sudden,  and  waters  deep,"  can  say, 

•'  Then  thou,  my  soul,  in  safety  rest. 
Thy  Guardian  will  not  sleep  ; 

■H-  If  ■in  *  In  It 

Shelter'd  beneath  th'  Almighty  wings 
Thou  shalt  securely  rest."  * 


Such  were  the  scenes  which  colored  his  boyhood,  were  reflecteO 
in  his  after  life,  and  produced  "The  Song  of  the  Three  Fishers,"  a 
song  not  the  mere  creation  of  his  imagination,  but  the  literii 
transcript  of  what  he  had  seen  again  and  again  in  Devonshire^ 
"  Now  that  you  have  seen  Clovelly,"  he  said  to  his  wife,  in 
1854,  "you  know  what  was  the  inspiration  of  my  life  before  I  met 
you." 

The  boys  had  a  private  tutor  at  home,  till,  in  1831,  Charles-and 
his  brother  Herbert  were  sent  to  Clifton  to  a  preparatory  school 
under  the  Rev.  John  Knight,  who  describes  him  as  "affectionate, 
gentle,  and  fond  of  quiet,"  which  often  made  him  leave  the  boys' 
school-room  and  take  refuge  with  his  tutor's  daughters  and  their 
governess;  capable  of  making  remarkable  translations  of  Latin 
verse  into  English  ;  a  passionate  lover  of  natural  history  ;  and 
only  excited  to  vehement  anger  when  the  housemaid  swept  away 
as  rubbish  some  of  the  treasures  collected  in  his  walks  on  the 
I  >owns. 

The  Bristol  Riots,  which  took  place  in  the  autumn  of  1831,  were 
the  marked  event  in  his  life  at  Clifton.  He  had  been  a  timid  boy 
previous  to  this  time,  but  the  horror  of  the  scenes  which  he  wit- 
nessed seemed  to  wake  up  a  new  courage  in  him.      When  giving  a 


•  Bradj  and  Tate's  Version  of  the  Psalnis, 


32  Charles  Kings  ley. 

leclar^  at  Bristol  in  1858,  he  described  the  effect  (if  all  this  on  hi< 
imnd.* 

While  Charles  was  at   Clifton,  his  parents  were  still  undecided 
whether  to  send  him  to  a  public  school.     There  was  some  talk  of 
both  Eton  and  Rugby.      Dr.   Hawtrey,  who  had  heard  through 
mutual  friends  of  the  boy's  talent,  wished  to  have  him  at  Eton, 
where    doubtless    he    would    have    distinguished    himself.       Dr. 
Arnold  was  at  that  time  head-master  of  Rugby,  but  the  strong  Tor) 
principles   and  evangelical  views  of  his   parents   (in   the  former 
Charles  at  that  time  sympathized)  decided  them  against  Rugby — a 
decision  which  their  son  deeply  regretted  for  many  reasons,  when 
he  grew  up.     It  was  his  own  conviction  that  nothing  but  a  public 
school  education  would  have  overcome  his  constitutional  shyness, 
a  shyness  which  he  never  lost,  and  which  was  naturally  increased  by 
ihe  hesitation  in  his  speech.       This  hesitation  was  so  sore  a  trial  to 
him  that  he  seldom  entered  a  room,  or  spoke  in  private  or  public 
without  a  feeling,  at  moments  amounting  to  terror,  when  he  said  he 
cculd  have  wished  the  earth  would  open  and  swallow  him  up  there 
and  then. 

At  tliat  time  the  Grammar  School  at  Helston  was  under  the 
head-mastership  of  the  Rev.  Derwent  Coleridge,  son  of  Samuel 
Taylor  Coleridge;  and  Mr.  Kingsley  decided  to  send  his  son  there. 
There  Charles  formed  the  dearest  and  most  lasting  friendship  of  his 
life,  with  Richard  Cowley  Powles,  afterwards  Eellow  and  Tutor  of 
Exeter  College,  Oxford,  and  who  in  1869,  to  the  great  joy  and  com- 
fort of  his  old  schoolfellow,  became  one  of  his  parishioners  at 
Wixenford,  in  Eversley.  At  Helston,  too,  he  found  as  second- 
master  the  Rev.  Charles  A.  Johns,  afterwards  himself  head-master, 
who  made  himself  the  companion  of  his  young  pupil,  encouraging 
his  taste,  or  rather  passion  for  botany,  going  long  rambles  with  him 
on  the  neighboring  moors  and  on  the  sea  coast,  in  search  of  wild 
flowers,  and  helping  him  in  the  study  which  each  loved  so  well.  In 
later  years,  when  both  were  living  in  Hampshire,  Mr.  Johns  labored 
successfully  lor  the  cause  of  physical  science  in  the  diocese  of  Win- 
chester, where  his  name  will  long  be  remembered  in  conjunctiou 
once  more  with  his  former  pupil  and  distinguished  friend. 

•Miscellanies,  Vol.  II.,  p.  ,^19,  Great  Cities,  and  their  influence  for  grio^ 
Rnd  evil. 


School  Life  at  Helstoii.  33 

Of  Charles's  school  life  both  Mr.  Coleridge  and  Mr.  Vowles  havtf 
Lontributed  their  recollections,  which  shall  be  given  in  their  own 
wrords. 

REV.   D.    COLERIDGE   TO    MRS.    KINGSLEY. 

Hanwkll  Rectory, 

October  7,   1875. 

".  .  .  .  Charles  and  Herbert  Kingsley  were  brought  to 
Helston  Grammar  School,  in  Cornwall,  in  the  year  1832,  by  their 
father  the  Rev.  Charles  Kingsley,  then  Rector  of  Clovelly,  in  Devon. 
Herbert  died  of  heart-disease,  brought  on  by  a  severe  attack  of 

rheumatism  in  1834 Charles  was  a  tall,  slight  boy,  of 

keen  visage,  and  of  great  bodily  activity,  high-spirited,  earnest,  and 
energetic,  giving  full  promise  of  the  intellectual  powers,  and  moraf 
qualities,  by  which  he  was  afterwards  distinguished.  Though  not 
a  close  student,  he  was  an  eager  reader  and  enquirer,  sometimes  in 
very  out  of  the  way  quarters.  I  once  found  him  busily  engaged 
with  an  old  copy  of  'Porphyry  and  lamblichus,'  which  he  had  fer- 
reted  out  of  my  library. 

"  Truly  a  remarkable  boy,  original  to  the  verge  of  eccentricity, 
and  yet  a  thorough  boy,  fond  of  sport,  and  up  to  any  enterprise — 
a  genuine  out-of-doors  English  boy. 

"  His  account  of  a  walk  or  run  would  often  display  considerable 
eloquence — the  impediment  in  his  speech,  already  noticeable, 
though  not,  I  think,  so  marked  as  it  afterwards  became,  rathei 
adding  to  the  effect.  We  well  remember  his  description  of  a  hum 
after  some  pigs,  from  which  he  returned  (not  an  uncommon  occur- 
rence) with  his  head  torn  with  brambles,  and  his  face  beaming  with 
fun  and  frolic.  In  manner  he  was  strikingly  courteous,  and  thus, 
with  his  wide  and  ready  sympathies,  and  bright  intelligence,  was 
popular  alike  with  tutor,  schoolfellows,  and  servants. 

"  His  health  was  generally  very  good,  but  in  the  summer  of  1834 
he  had  a  violent  attack  of  English  cholera,  which  occasioned  the 
more  alarm  as  the  Asiatic  form  of  that  malady  had  reached  Helston. 
He  bore  it  bravely,  and  recovered  from  it,  but  I  beheve  that  the 
apprehension  this  occasioned  led  to  his  removal  earlier  than  was 
intended,  the  distance  from  London  to  the  extreme  west  of  Coni 
wall  being  felt  by  his  parents  to  be  too  great. 

"After  he  left  Cambridge  he  sent  me  the  manuscript  of  his 
tragedy  of  'Elizabeth  of  Hungary'  for  my  criticism  and  approval 
This  was  the  last  occasion  in  which  I  stood  to  him  in  any  degree  in 
the  relation  of  a  tutor  or  adviser.  Erom  this  time  I  saw  him  only 
at  intervals ;  but  when  I  paid  him,  as  Canon  of  Westminster,  my 
first,  and,  as  it  proved,  alas  !  my  last  visit,  on  the  17th  of  No\efnbef, 
1874,  he  flung  his  arms  about  my  neck,  exclaiming,  '  Oh  !  my  deai 

3 


34  Charles  Kingsley. 

old  master!  i/iy  clei;r  old  master:'  nor  was  he  liss  arfected  at  the 

sight  of  Mrs.  Coleridge —  Valeat  in  ater7ium 

"Derwent  Coleridge." 


REV.    R.    C.    POWLES   TO    MRS.    KINGSLEY. 

WlXENFORD,   Oct.  30,   1875, 

"  It  was  at  Helston,  in  January,  1833,  when  we  <v'ere  each  in  oui 
fouiteenth  year,  that  Charles  and  I  first  became  acquainted.  He 
and  his  brother  Herbert  had  been  spending  the  Christinas  holidays 
at  school,  and  I  was  introduced  to  them,  on  my  arrival  from  Lon- 
don, before  any  of  our  schoolfellows  had  returned.  I  remember 
the  long,  low  room,  dimly  lighted  by  a  candle  on  a  table  at  the 
further  end,  where  the  brothers  were  sitting,  engaged  at  the  mo- 
ment of  my  entrance  in  a  course  of  (not  uncharacteristic)  e.xperi- 
Pients  with  gunpowder. 

"Almost  from  the  time  of  our  first  introduction  Charles  and  I 
became  friends,  and  subsequently  we  shared  a  study,  so  that  we 
were  a  good  deal  together.  Looking  back  on  those  schoolboy  days, 
one  can  trace  without  difficulty  the  elements  of  character  that  made 
his  maturer  life  remarkable.  Of  him  more  than  of  most  men  who 
have  become  famous  it  may  be  said,  '  the  boy  was  father  of  the  man.' 
The  vehement  spirit,  the  adventurous  courage,  the  love  of  truth, 
the  impatience  of  injustice,  the  quick  and  tender  sympathy,  that 
distinguished  the  man's  entrance  on  public  life,  were  all  in  the  boy, 
as  any  of  those  who  knew  him  tlien  and  are  still  living  will  remem- 
ber ;  and  there  was,  besides,  the  same  eagerness  in  the  pursuit  of 
physical  knowledge,  the  same  keen  observation  of  the  world  around 
him,  and  the  same  thoughtful  temper  of  tracing  facts  to  principles, 
which  all  who  are  familiar  with  his  writings  recognize  as  among  his 
most  notable  characteristics. 

"  For  all  his  good  qualities,  Charles  was  not  popular  as  a  school- 
boy. He  knew  too  much,  and  his  mind  was  generally  on  a  higher 
level  than  ours.  He  did  not  consciously  snub  those  who  knew  less, 
but  a  good  deal  of  unconscious  snubbing  went  on  ;  all  the  more 
resented,  perhaps,  because  it  was  unconscious.  Then,  too,  though 
strong  and  active,  Charles  was  not  expert  at  games.  He  never 
made  "  a  score  "  at  cricket.  In  mere  feats  of  agility  and  adven- 
ture he  was  among  the  foremost ;  and  on  one  of  the  very  last  times 
1  ever  saw  him  he  was  recalling  an  old  exploit  in  which  he  had 
only  two  competitors.  Our  play-grounij  was  separated  by  a  lane, 
not  very  narrow,  and  very  deep,  from  a  field  on  the  opposite  side. 
To  jump  from  the  pla} '-ground  wall  to  the  wall  opposite,  and  to 
jump  back,  was  a  considerable  trial  of  nerve  and  muscle.  The 
walls,  which  were  not  quite  on  a  level,  were  rounded  at  the  top 
and  a  fall  into  the  deep  lane  must  have  involved  broken  bones. 
This  junif  was  one  of  Charles's  favorite  performances.     Again,  i 


School  Life  at  Hclstoi.  3c 

lemember  his  climbing  a  tall  tree  to  take  an  egg  from  a  hawk'a 
nest.  For  three  or  four  days  he  had  done  this  with  impunity.  There 
came  an  afternoon,  however,  when  the  hawk  was  on  her  nest,  and 
on  the  intruder's  putting  in  his  hand  as  usual  the  results  were  disas- 
trous. To  most  boys  the  surprise  of  the  hawk's  attack,  apart  from 
the  pain  int^icted  by  her  claws,  would  have  been  fatal.  They 
would  h^ve  loosed  their  hold  of  the  tree,  and  tumbled  down.  But 
Charles  did  not  flinch.  He  came  down  as  steadily  as  if  nothing 
had  happened,  though  his  wounded  hand  was  streaming  with  blood. 
It  was  wonderful  how  well  he  bore  pain.  On  one  occasion,  having 
a  sore  finger,  he  determined  to  cure  it  by  cautery.  He  heated  the 
poker  red-hot  in  the  school-room  fire,  and  calmly  applied  it  two  or 
three  times  till  he  was  satisfied  that  his  object  was  attained. 

"His  own  endurance  of  pain  did  not,  however,  make  him  care- 
less of  suffering  in  others.  He  was  very  tender-hearted — often  more 
so  than  his  schoolfellows  could  understand  ;  and  what  they  did  not 
unclerstand  they  were  apf  to  ridicule.  And  this  leads  me  to  notice 
what,  after  all,  1  should  fix  on  as  the  moral  quality  that  pre- 
eminently distinguished  him  as  a  boy,  the  generosity  with  which  he 
forgave  offence.  He  was  keenly  sensitive  to  ridicule  ;  nothing 
irritated  him  more ;  and  he  had  often  excessive  provocation  from 
those  who  could  not  enter  into  his  feelings,  or  appreciate  the  work- 
ings of  his  mind.  But  with  the  moment  of  offence  the  memory  of 
it  passed  away.  He  had  no  place  for  vindictiveness  in  his  heart. 
Again  and  again  I  have  seen  him  chafed  to  the  intensest  exaspera- 
tion by  boys  with  whom  half  an  hour  afterwards  he  has  mixed  with 
the  frankest  good  humor. 

"How  keen  his  feelings  were  none  of  his  surviving  schoolfellows 
will  forget,  who  were  with  us  at  the  time  his  brother  Herbert  died. 
Herbert  had  had  an  attack  of  rheumatic  fever,  but  was  supposed  to 
be  recovering  and  nearly  convalescent,  when  one  afternoon  he 
sudtlenly  passed  away.  Charles  was  summoned  from  the  room 
where  we  were  all  sitting  in  ignorance  of  what  had  just  taken  place. 
All  at  once  a  cry  of  anguish  burst  upon  us,  such  as,  after  more  than 
forty  years,  I  remember  as  if  it  were  yesterday.  There  was  no  need 
to  tell  the  awe-struck  listeners  what  had  happened. 

"  Thus  far  I  have  spoken  rather  of  Charles's  moral  than  of  his 
intellectual  qualities.  I  must  add  something  of  these  latter.  His  chief 
Ijste  was,  as  I  have  hinted,  for  physical  science.  He  was  fond  of 
studying  all  objects  of  the  natural  world,  but  for  botany  and  geology 
he  had  an  absolute  enthusiasm.  Whatever  time  he  could  spare 
from  less  congenial  studies,  and  from  ordinary  play-ground  games, 
which  never  specially  attracted  him,  he  gave  to  these.  He  liker" 
nothing  better  than  to  sally  out,  hammer  in  hand  and  his  botanical 
tin  slung  round  his  neck,  on  some  long  expedition  in  quest  of  new 
plants,  and  to  investigate  the  cliffs  within  a  few  mi'es  of  Helston, 
•lear  to  «very  geologist . 


36  Charles  Kings  ley. 

"For  the  study  of  language  he  had  no  great  liking.  Later  on 
Greek  and  I^atin  interested  him,  because  of  their  subject-matter; 
but  for  classics,  in  the  school-boy  sense  of  the  term,  he  had  no  turn. 
He  would  work  hard  at  them  by  fits  and  starts — on  the  eve  of  an 
examination,  for  instance  ;  but  his  industry  was  intermittent  and 
against  the  grain.  Nor  do  I  think  he  had  any  such  turn  for  mathe- 
matics as  led  him  to  make  the  most  of  the  opportunities  we  had  for 
that  branch  of  study.  His  passion  was  for  natural  science,  and  for 
art.  With  regard  to  the  former  I  think  his  zeal  was  led  by  a  strong 
religious  feeling — a  sense  of  the  nearness  of  God  in  His  works. 

"  R.  Cowley  Powles." 

To  his  mother  he  writes  during  the  early  days  of  his  scliool- 
life  :— 

"  I  am  now  quite  settled  and  very  happy.  I  read  my  Bible 
every  night,  and  try  to  profit  by  what  I  read,  and  I  am  sure  I  do. 
I  am  more  happy  now  than  I  have  been  for  a  long  time ;  but  I  do 
not  like  to  talk  about  it,  but  to  prove  it  by  my  conduct. 

"  I  am  keeping  a  journal  of  my  actions  and  thoughts,  and  I  hope 
it  will  be  useful  to  me." 

His  poetical  compositions,  which  were  many  at  this  time,  were 
all  given  to  his  friend  Mr.  Powles,  who  has  carefully  preserved 
them.  Charles  kept  no  note  of  them  himself,  and  would  not  have 
thought  them  worth  keeping.  But  one  more  must  be  added,  as  i( 
shows  the  working  of  the  boy's  mind  at  fifteen.  He  calkd  it  him- 
self 

HYPOTHESES   HYPOCHONDRIACS. 

And  should  she  die,  her  grave  should  be 

Upon  the  bare  top  of  a  sunny  hill, 

Among  the  moorlands  of  her  own  fair  land, 

Amid  a  ring  of  old  and  moss-grown  stones 

In  gorse  and  heather  all  embosomed. 

There  should  be  no  tall  stone,  no  marbled  tomb 

Above  her  gentle  corse  ; — the  ponderous  pile 

Would  press  too  rudely  on  those  fairy  limbs. 

The  turf  should  lightly  lie,  that  marked  her  home, 

A  sacred  spot  it  would  be — every  bird 

That  came  to  watch  her  lone  grave  should  be  holy 

The  deer  should  browse  arcund  her  undisturbed  \ 

The  whin  bird  by,  her  lonely  nest  should  build 

All  fearless ;  for  in  life  she  loved  to  see 


Hypotheses  Hypochondriaccz.  37 

Happiness  in  all  things — 

And  we  would  come  on  summer  days 

When  all  around  was  bright,  and  set  us  down 

And  think  of  all  that  lay  beneath  that  turf 

On  which  the  heedless  moor-bird  sits,  and  whistles 

His  long,  shrill,  painful  song,  as  though  he  plained 

For  her  that  loved  him  and  his  pleasant  hills, 

And  we  would  dream  again  of  bygone  days 

Until  our  eyes  should  swell  with  natural  tears 

For  brilliant  hopes — all  faded  into  air  ! 

As,  on  tlie  sands  of  Irak,  near  approach 

Destroys  the  traveller's  vision  of  still  lakes, 

And  goodly  streams  reed-clad,  and  meadows  gr-en } 

And  leaves  behind  the  drear  reality 

CJf  shadeless,  same,  yet  everchanging  sand  ! 

And  when  the  sullen  clouds  rose  thick  on  high 

Mountains  on  mountains  rolling — and  dark  mist 

Wrapped  itself  round  the  hill- tops  like  a  shroud. 

When  on  her  grave  swept  by  the  moaning  wind 

Bending  the  heatlier-bells— then  would  I  come 

And  watch  by  her,  in  silent  loneliness, 

And  smile  upon  the  storm— as  knowing  well 

The  lightning's  flash  would  surely  turn  aside, 

Nor  mar  the  lowly  mound,  where  peaceful  sleep* 

All  that  gave  life  and  love  to  one  fond  heart! 

I  talk  of  things  that  are  not ;  and  if  prayers 

By  night  and  day  availeth  from  my  weak  lips, 

Then  should  they  never  be  !  till  I  was  gone, 

Before  the  friends  I  loved,  to  my  long  home. 

O  pardon  me,  if  aught  I  say  too  much ;  my  mind 

Too  often  strangely  turns  to  ribald  mirth, 

As  though  I  had  no  doubt  nor  hope  beyond — 

Or  brooding  melancholy  cloys  my  soul 

With  thoughts  of  days  misspent,  of  wasted  time 

And  bitter  feelings  swallowed  up  in  jests. 

Then  strange  and  fearful  thoughts  flit  o'er  my  br»io 

By  indistinctness  made  more  terrible, 

Aqd  incut  i  mock  at  me  with  fierce  eyes 

Upon  my  couch  :  and  visions,  crude  and  dire. 

Of  planets,  suns,  millions  of  miles,  infinity, 

Space,  time,  thought,  being,  blank  nonentity, 

Things  incorporeal,  fancies  of  the  brain. 

Seen,  heard,  as  though  they  were  material. 

All  mixed  in  sickening  mazes,  trouble  me. 

And  lead  my  soul  away  from  earth  and  heavM 
Uttil  I  doubt  whether  I  be  or  not  I 


38  Chafles  Kings  ley. 

And  then  I  see  all  frightful  shapes — lank  ghosts, 

Hydras,  chimeras,  krakens,  -pastes  of  sand, 

Herbless  and  void  of  living  voice — tall  mountaUis 

Cleaving  the  skies  with  height  immeasurable. 

On  which  perchance  I  climb  for  infinite  years,  broad  sea*. 

Studded  with  islands  numberless,  that  stretch 

Beyond  the  regions  of  the  sun,  and  fade 

Away  in  distance  vast,  or  dreary  clouds, 

Cold,  dark,  and  watery,  where  wander  I  for  ever  ! 

Oi  space  of  ether,  where  I  hang  for  aye  ! 

A  speck,  an  atom — inconsumable — 

Immortal,  hopeless,  voiceless,  powerless  ! 

And  oft  I  fancy  I  am  weak  and  old. 

And  all  who  loved  me,  one  by  one,  are  dead. 

And  I  am  left  alone — and  cannot  die  ! 

Surely  there  is  no  rest  on  earth  for  souls 

Whose  dreams  are  like  a  madman's  !  I  am  young 

And  much  is  yet  before  me — after  years 

May  bring  peace  with  them  to  my  weary  heart ! 

C.  K. 

In  1836  the  happy  free  country  life  of  Clovelly  was  exchanged 
for  I-ondon  work  and  the  rectory  of  St.  Luke's,  Chelsea,  to  which 
Lord  Cadogan  had  presented  Mr.  Kingsley.  There  the  famil) 
settled,  and  Charles  wa?  entered,  as  a  day  student,  at  King's  Col- 
lege, London,  where,  says  Dr.  Barry,  the  present  principal,  in  a 
recent  letter  : — 

"  He  became  a  member  of  the  General  Literature  Department 
of  the  College — that  is,  the  department  for  those  who  are  simply 
pursuing  a  liberal  education  (with  a  much  larger  admixture  of 
mathematics,  modes,  languages,  and  physical  science,  than  was  then 
usual),  aftei  leaving  school  before  settling  to  a  profession  or  going 
to  the  university.  .  .  .It  was  a  great  pleasure  to  me,  he  adds, 
to  liave  been  able  to  invite  one  to  whose  writings  I  owe  so  much, 
to  preach  for  us  at  the  College  in  1873,  and  to  allow  us  to  add  his 
name  to  our  list  of  Honorary  fellows.     .     .     ." 

It  was  a  great  grief  to  Charles  to  leave  the  AVest  Country  and 
the  society  of  those  who  were  all  ready  to  help  him  in  his  botani- 
cal and  geological  studies,  and  in  pickirg  up  the  old  traditions 
of  the  neighborhood.  The  parting  with  his  dear  friend  Cowley 
Powles,  the  loss  of  the  intellectual  atmosphere  of  Mr.  Coleridge's 
house  and  his  valuable  library,  and,  above  all,  of  the  beautiful  nafc 


Removal  to  Chelsea.  39 

oral  surroundings  of  both  Helston  and  Clovelly,  was  bitterl)-  felt 
The  change  to  a  London  rectory,  with  its  ceaseless  parish  woik, 
the  discussion  of  which  is  so  wearisome  to  the  young,  the  middle- 
class  society  of  a  suburban  district  as  Chelsea  then  was,  tlie  polem- 
ical conversation  all  seemingly  so  narrow  and  conventional  in  its 
tone,  chafed  the  boy's  spirit,  and  had  anything  but  a  happy  effect 
on  his  mind.  His  parents  were  busy  from  morning  till  night,  the 
house  full  of  district  visitors  and  parish  committees.  In  short, 
Chelsea  was  a  prison  from  which  he  thankfully  escaped  two  years 
later  to  the  freer  life  of  Cambridge. 

To  his  dear  friend  and  schoolfellow  at  Helston  he  thus  pours 
out  his  heart : — 

Chelsea  Rectory. 

"  I  find  a  doleful  difi'erence  in  the  society  here  and  at  Helston, 
paradoxical  as  it  may  appear.  .  .  •  .  We  have  nothing  but  cler- 
gymen (very  good  and  sensible  men,  but),  talking  of  nothing  but 
parochial  schools,  and  duties,  and  vestries,  and  curates,  &c.,  &c., 
&c.  And  as  for  women,  there  is  not  a  woman  in  all  Chelsea,  leav- 
ing out  my  ovvn  mother,  to  be  compared  to  Mrs.  C,  or ;  and 

the  girls  here  have  got  their  heads  crammed  full  of  schools,  and 
district  visiting,  and  baby  linen,  and  penny  clubs.  Confound  !  !  ! 
and  going  about  among  the  most  abominable  scenes  of  filth,  wretch- 
edness, and  indecency,  to  visit  the  poor  and  read  the  Bible  to  them. 
My  own  mother  says  the  places  they  go  into  are  fit  for  no  girl  to 
see,  and  that  they  should  not  know  such  things  exist.     . 

I  regret  here,  then,  as  you  tnay  suppose,  Mrs.  D.,  and ;  but, 

alas  !  here  are  nothing  but  ugly  splay-footed  beings,  three-fourths 
of  whom  can't  sing,  and  the  other  quarter  sing  miles  out  of  tune, 
with  voices  like  love-sick  parrots.  Confound  !  !  !  I  have  got  here 
two  or  three  good  male  acquaintances  who  kill  the  time ;  one  is 
Sub-Secretar}^  to  the  Geological  Society.     .     .     . 

"As  you  may  suppose  all  this  clerical  conversation  (to  which  I 
am  obliged  to  listen)  has  had  a  slight  effect  in  settling  my  opinion 
on  these  subjects,  and  I  begin  to  hate  these  dapper  young-ladies- 
preachers  like  the  devil,  for  I  a.m  sickened  and  enraged  to  see 
'  silly  women  blown  about  by  every  wind,'  falling  in  love  with  the 
preacher  instead  of  his  sermon,  and  with  his  sermon  instead  of  the 
Bible  I  could  say  volumes  on  chis  subject  that  should  raise  both 
your  contempt  and  indignation.  I  am  sickened  with  its  day-by-day 
occurrence.*     As  you  may  suppose,  this  hatred  is  Trarp(50ev,  liere- 

*  These  early  experiences  made  him  most  careful  in  after  life,  when  /n  a  par 
iah  of  his  own,  to  confine  all  talk  of  parish  business  to  its  own  hours,  ar  \  never, 


4©  Charles  Kingsley. 

ditary,  and  the  governor  is  never  more  rich  than  when  he  unbjndi 
on  these  points." 

For  the  next  two  years  he  had  what  he  called  hard  grinding 
work  at  King's  College,  walking  up  there  every  day  from  Chelsea, 
reading  all  the  way,  and  walking  home  late,  to  study  all  the  even- 
ing. In  his  spare  hours,  which  were  few  and  far  between,  he  com- 
forted himself  for  the  lack  of  all  amusement  by  devouring  every 
book  he  could  lay  hands  on.  His  parents  were  absorbed  in  their 
parish  work,  and  their  religious  views  precluded  all  public  amuse- 
ments for  their  children :  so  that  the  only  variety  in  Charles's  life 
was  during  the  summer  holidays,  when  his  father  took  him  to  Dur 
ham  to  stay  at  his  friend  Dr.  Wellesley's,  or  to  Clovelly. 

as  be  called  it,  "  talk  shop"  before  his  children,  or  lower  the  tone  of  con\;rs»- 
tina*  by  letting  it  degenerate  into  mere  parochial  and  clerical  gossip 


CHAPTER  III. 

1838—42. 
Aged  19-23. 

Ife  at  Cambridge — Visit  tc  Oxfordsliire — Undergradu;  te  Days — Dec  des  to  taks 
Orders — Takes  his  Degree — Correspondence — Letters  from  Cambridge 
Friends. 

In  the  autumn  of  1838  Charles  Kuigsley  left  King's  College, 
Lonrlon,  and  went  up  to  Magdalene  College,  Cambridge,  where 
he  soon  gained  a  scholarship,  being  first  in  his  year  in  the  May 
Examinations,  and  in  the  joy  of  his  heart  he  writes  home  : — 

Magdalene  College, 

May  31,   1839. 

"You  will  be  delighted  to  hear  that  I  z.m.fii-st  in  classics  and 
mathematics  also,  at  the  examinations,  which  has  not  happened  in 
the  College  for  several  years.  \  shall  bring  home  prizes,  and  a 
decent  portion  of  honor — the  King's  College  men  (K.C.  London) 
are  all  delighted.  I  am  going  to  stay  up  here  a  few  days  longer  if 
you  will  let  me.  Mr.  Wand  has  offered  to  help  me  with  my  second 
year's  subjects,  so  I  shall  read  conic  sections  and  the  spherical 
trigonometry  very  hard  while  1  am  here.  I  know  you  and  mamma 
will  be  glad  to  hear  of  my  success,  so  you  must  pardon  the  wild- 
ness  of  my  letter,  for  1  am  so  happy  I  hardly  know  what  to  say. 
You  know  I  am  not  accustomed  to  be  successful.  I  am  going 
to-day  to  a  great  fishing  party  at  Sir  Charles  Wale's,  at  Shelford." 

The  prize  he  refers  to  was  a  fine  edition  of  Plato  in  eleven 
volumes.  "  His  selection  of  such  a  book,"  says  Mr.  Mynora 
Bright,  an  undergraduate  friend,  afterwards  senior  tutor  of  Mag- 
dalene, in  a  recent  letter  to  the  Editor, 

*'  Speaks  well  for  his  judgment  and  taste.  I  recollect  one  of  the 
examiners,  a  Fellow  of  the  College,  telling  me,  that  whatever 
papers  Kingsley  sent  up  to  any  examination  always  showed  marka 
of  talent.      As  you  must  know,   he   was  always  of  an   excitable 


42  Charles  Khtgstey. 

temi)eramerit.  I  recollect  his  telling  me  that  he  first  began  to 
smoke  at  Cambridge,  and  that  it  had  a  wonderful  effect  on  Jiis 
nervous  system,  and  enabled  him  to  work.  He  did  not  get  a 
Fellowshi[),  because  there  was  no  vacancy  for  him,  till  he  obtained 
one  which,  no  doubt,  was  more  pleasing  to  him.  When  he  was 
about  to  return  as  Professor  to  Cambridge,  I  was  very  much 
amused  one  morning,  on  saying  to  the  College  cook,  '  We  have  a 
great  man  coming  to  us  again,  Mr.  Kingsley  ;  do  you  recollect 
anything  of  him  ? '  He  thought  a  minute,  and  then  answered  : 
'  Mr.  Kingsley — Mr.  Kingsley.  Yes,  I  recollect  him.  I  used  to 
feed  a  dog  of  his,  and  he  used  to  come  and  say'  (trying  to  imitate 
Kingsley's  voice),  'You  con — founded  beast,  why  can't  you  earn 
your  own  living,  and  not  oblige  me  to  pay  for  you  ! '  " 

In  the  summer  of  1839  the  Rector  of  Chelsea  took  duty,  for  the 
sake  of  country  air  and  change,  near  some  intimate  friends,  at  the 
village  of  Checkenden,  in  Oxfordshire,  and  settled  in  the  little 
parsonage  house  for  two  months  with  his  wife  and  his  family, 
Charles,  then  an  undergraduate  of  Cambridge,  Gerald  in  the 
Royal  Navy  (since  dead),  a  daughter,  and  two  schoolboys.  On 
the  6th  of  July,  Charles  and  his  future  wife  met  for  the  first  time. 
*'  That  was  my  real  wedding  day,"  he  salvi,  some  fifteen  years  after- 
wards. 

He  was  then  full  of  religious  doubts  ;  and  his  face,  with  itf 
unsatisfied  hungering  look,  bore  witness  to  the  state  of  his  mind. 
It  had  a  sad  longuig  expression,  too,  as  if  he  had  all  his  life  been 
looking  for  a  sympathy  he  had  never  found — a  rest  which  he  never 
would  attain  in  this  world.  His  peculiar  character  had  not  been 
understood  hitherto,  and  his  heart  had  been  half  asleep.  It  woke 
up  now,  and  never  slept  again.  For  the  first  time  he  could  speak 
with  perfect  freedom,  and  be  met  with  answering  sympathy.  And 
gradually  as  the  new  friendship  (which  yet  seemed  old — from  the 
first  more  of  a  recognition  than  an  acquaintance)  deepened  into 
intimacy,  every  doubt,  every  thought,  every  failing,  every  sin,  as 
he  would  call  it,  was  laid  bare.  Counsel  was  asked  and  given,  all 
things  in  heaven  and  earth  discussed  ;  and  as  nev  hopes  dawned, 
the  look  of  hard  defiance  gave  way  to  a  wonderful  humility  and 
tenderness,  which  were  his  char^cte^istics,  with  those  who  under 
Btood  him,  to  his  dying  day. 

He  was  just  like  his  own  Lancelot  in  Yeast,  in   that  summer  ol 
1839 — a  bold  thinker,  a  bold  rider,  a  most  chivalrous  gentleman — 


Visi/  to  Oxfordshire.  43 

sad.  shy,  and  serious  habitually ;  in  conversatic  n  at  one  inoinenl 
brilliant  and  impassioned  ;  the  next  reserved  and  una[)proachable  \ 
by  turns  attracting  and  repelling,  but  pouring  forth  to  the  friend 
whom  he  could  trust,  stores  of  thought  and  feeling  and  information 
on  every  sort  of  unexpected  subject  which  seemed  boundless.  It 
was  a  feast  to  the  imagination  and  intellect  to  hold  communion 
with  Charles  Kingsley  even  at  the  age  of  twenty  ;  the  originality 
with  which  he  treated  a  subject  was  startling,  and  his  genius  i'luuii- 
nated  every  object  it  approached,  whether  he  spcjke  of  "  th-d 
delicious  shiver  of  those  aspen  leaves,"  on  the  nearest  tree,  yi  of 
the  deepest  laws  of  humanity  and  the  controversies  of  the  day. 
Of  that  intercourse  truly  might  these  friends  each  say  with  Goethe 
— "  For  the  first  time,  I  may  well  say,  I  carried  on  a  conversation ; 
for  the  first  time,  was  the  inmost  sense  of  my  words  returned  to 
me,  more  rich,  more  full,  more  comprehensive  from  another's 
mouth.  What  I  had  been  groping  for,  was  rendered  clear  to  me  j 
what  I  had  been  thinking,  I  was  taught  to  see.     .     .     ." 

The  Oxford  Tracts  had  lately  appeared,  and,  though  he  dis- 
cussed them  from  the  merely  human  and  not  the  religious  point  of 
view,  he  fiercely  denounced  the  ascetic  view  of  sacred  human  ties 
which  he  foresaw  would  result  from  them.  Even  then  he  detected 
in  them  principles  which,  as  he  expressed  years  afterwards  in  his 
preface  to  Hypatia,  must,  if  once  adopted,  sap  the  very  foundation 
of  the  two  divine  roots  of  the  Church,  the  ideas  of  family  and 
national  life. 

Two  months  of  such  intercourse  passed  away  only  too  quickly, 
and  though  from  this  time  for  the  next  four  years  and  a  half,  the 
friends  met  but  seldom,  and  corresponded  at  rare  intervals,  a  new 
life  had  dawned  for  both,  which  neither  absence  nor  sorrow,  differ- 
ence of  religious  opinions,  opposition  of  friends,  or  adverse  cir- 
cumstances, could  extinguish.  Before  he  left  Oxfordshire  he  was 
so  far  shaken  in  his  doubts,  that  he  promised  to  read  his  Bible  once 
more — to  ptay — to  open  his  heart  to  the  Light,  if  the  Light  would 
but  come.  All,  however,  was  dark  for  a  time,  and  the  conflict 
between  hopes  and  fears  fur  the  future,  and  between  faith  and  w\\- 
belief,  was  so  ^crce  and  bitter,  that  when  he  returned  to  Cam- 
bridge, he  became  reckless,  and  nearly  gave  up  all  for  lost  :  he 
read  little,  went  in  for  excitement  of  every  kind — boating,  huntii\g, 
driving,  fencing,  boaing,  duck-shooting  in  the   Fens, — anything  tc 


deaden  the  remembrance  of  the  happy  past,  which  just  then 
promised  no  future.  More  than  once  he  had  nearly  resolved  to 
leave  Cambridge  and  go  out  to  the  Far  West  and  live  as  a  wild 
prairie  hunter;  to  this  he  refers  when  for  the  first  time  he  found 
himself  on  the  prairies  of  America  in  1874,  But  through  all,  God 
kept  him  in  those  dark  days  for  a  work  he  little  dreamed  of. 

He  had  many  friends  in  the  University  who  took  delight  in  hia 
society,  some  for  his  wit  and  humor,  others  for  his  sympathy  on  art, 
and  deeper  matters,  but  they  knew  nothing  of  the  real  state  of  his 
mind.  "He  was  very  popular,"  writes  an  intimate  undergraduate 
friend,  "  amongst  all  classes  of  his  companions,  he  mixed  freely 
with  all,  the  studious,  the  idle,  the  clever,  and  the  reverse,  a  most 
agreeable  companion,  full  of  information  of  all  kinds,  and  abound- 
ing in  conversation.  Whatever  he  engaged  in,  he  threw  his  whole 
energy  into;  he  read  hard  at  times,  but  enjoyed  sports  of  all 
kinds,  fishing,  shooting,  riding,  and  cards."  A  letter  from  the  Rev. 
E.  Pitcairn  Campbell,  gives  a  graphic  account  of  their  under 
griduate  life  just  then. 

Aston  Lodge,  November,  1875. 

*'  My  first  acquaintance  with  your  husband  was  formed  sometime 
in  1840. 

"  We  happened  to  be  sitting  together  one  night  on  the  top  of 
one  of  those  coaches  which  in  our  time  were  subscribed  for  by  a 
number  of  men  ioj".  or  ;£^\  each  for  various  expeditions  into  the 
Fens — for  instance,  when  Whittlesea  lay  broadly  under  water — Sir 
Colman  Rashleigh,  the  Dykes  of  Cornwall,  or  other  driving  men 
taking  the  management,  wearing  wonderful  coats  and  hats,  and 
providing  the  horses.  I  remember  the  drive  very  well.  The 
moon  was  high,  and  the  air  was  frosty,  and  we  talked  about  sport 
and  natural  history,  while  the  cornopean  professor  astonished  the 
natives  with  what  he  called  Mr.  Straw's  (!)  walzes. 

"  At  last  we  got  upon  fishing,  and  I  invited  your  husband  to 
come  to  my  rooms  to  view  some  very  superior  tackle  which  had 
been  left  me  by  a  relative.  He  came  at  once,  inviting  me  to  join 
him  in  some  of  his  haunts  up  the  Granta  and  the  Cam,  where  he 
had  friends  dwelling,  and  hospitable  houses  open  to  him. 

"  I  never  shall  forget  our  first  expedition.  I  was  to  call  him, 
and  for  this  purpose  I  had  to  climb  over  the  wall  of  Magdalene 
College.  This  I  did  at  two  a.m.,  and  about  three  we  were  both 
climbing  back  into  the  stonemason's  yard,  and  oft'  through  Trump- 
ington,  in  pouring  rain  all  the  way,  nine  miles  to  Du.xford. 

"  We  reached  about  6.30.     The  water  was  clouded  b}  1  lin,  and 


I  in  couitesy  to  your  husband  yielded  my  heavier  rod  in  order  thai 
he  might  try  the  lower  water  with  the  minnow. 

"  He  was,  however,  scarcely  out  of  sight,  before  I  spied,  undei 
tlie  alders,  some  glorious  trout  rising  to  cateri)illars  diopping  from 
the  bushes.  In  ten  minutes  J  had  three  of  these  fine  fellows  on 
the  bank — one  of  tliem  weighed  three  pounds,  others  two  pounds 
each.      We  caught  nc  thing  after  the  rain  had  ceased. 

"  Thii;  performance  set  me  up  in  your  husband's  opinion,  and 
he  took  me  with  him  to  Shelford,  where  dwelt  Sir  Charles  Wale. 
It  was  at  Shelford  that  I  executed  the  feat  to  which  he  refers  in  his 
Miscellanies.* 

"  The  Times  coach  used  to  take  us  up  to  breakfast,  and  many  a 
good  trout  rewarded  our  labors.  Then  we  dined  with  Sir  Charles 
at  five  P.M.,  and  walked  back  to  Cambridge  in  the  evening.  Oh  ! 
what  pleasant  talk  was  iiis,  so  full  of  poetry  and  beauty  !  and,  what 
1  admired  most,  such  boundless  information. 

"  Besides  these  expeditions  we  made  others  on  horseback,  and 
I  think  at  times  we  followed  the  great  Professor  Sedgwick  in  his 
adventurous  rides,  which  the  livery  stable-keepers  called  joUy- 
gizing  !  f  The  old  professor  was  generally  mounted  on  a  bony 
giant,  whose  trot  kept  most  of  us  at  a  hand  gallop.  Gaunt  and 
grim,  the  brave  old  Northern  man  seemed  to  enjoy  the  fun  as 
much  as  we  did — his  was  not  a  hunting  seat — neither  his  hands 
nor  his  feet  ever  seemed  exactly  in  the  right  place.  But  when  we 
surrounded  him  at  the  trysting-place,  even  the  silliest  among  us 
acknowledged  that  his  lectures  were  glorious.  It  is  too  true  that 
our  method  of  reaching  those  trysting-places  was  not  legitimate, 
the  greater  number  preferring  the  field  to  the  road,  so  that  the  un- 
happy owners  of  the  horses  found  it  necessary  to  charge  more  for 
a  day's  joUy-gizing  than  they  did  for  a  day's  hunting. 

"  There  was  another  professor  whose  lectures  we  attended  to- 
gether, but  he  was  of  a  different  type  and  character — one  who 
taught  the  gentle  art  of  self  defence — a  negro  of  pure  blood,  who 
appeared  to  have  more  joints  in  his  back  than  are  usually  allotted 
to  humanity.  In  carrying  out  the  science  which  he  taught,  we 
occasionally  discolored  each  other's  countenances,  but  we  thought 
that  we  benefited  by  these  lectures  in  more  senses  than  one.  We 
had  our  tempers  braced,  yea,  even  our  Christian  charity  ;  for  in- 
stance, when  we  learnt  to  feel  as  we  knew  we  ought  for  those  who 
had  just  punished  us. 

"To  crown  our  sj^orts,  we  have  now  only  to  add  the  all-absorb- 
ing boating,  and,  dear  Mrs.  Kingslej  you  will  have  reason  to  think 
that  we  Lave  so  filled  up  our  time,  as  to  have   little  left  for    egi'v 

*  Chalk  Stream  Studies,  Prose  Idylls,  p.  83. 

■f  Professor  Sedgwick  gave  Geolog'-cal  Field  Lectures  on  horseback  to  a  da's 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Cambridge. 


46  Charles  Kings  ley. 

mate  study ;  and  so.  alack,  it  was  with  me,  but  not  so,  I  fancy, 
with  your  huiiband.  However  idle  we  both  were  at  first,  he  took 
to  reading  in  sufficient  time  to  enable  him  to  realize  the  degree  he 

wanted After  his  examination,  I  altogether  lost  sight  oi 

your  husband  until,  about  the  year  1865,  I  wrote  to  him  and  en- 
quired if  the  passage  in  the  Chalk  Stream  studies  did  not  refer  to 
me.     I  long  to  find  his  reply — it  was  a  charming  letter." 

Now  began  his  difficulties  in  theology  about  the  Trinity,  and 
vjther  important  doctrines.  He  revolted  from  what  seemed  to 
him  then,  the  "  bigotry,  cruelty,  and  quibbling,"  of  the  Athanasian 
Creed,  that  very  Creed  which  in  after  years  was  his  stronghold  ; 
and  he  could  get  no  clergyman  to  help  him  with  advice  he  could 
rely  on,  on  these  points.  Speaking  of  the  clergy  with  whom  he 
came  in  contact,  and  of  his  religious  doubts,  he  writes, 

"  This  is  not  so  much  beyond  reason,  as  it  is  beyond  the  propei 
bounds  of  induction.  From  very  insufficient  and  ambiguous 
grounds  in  the  Bible,  they  seem  unjustifiably  to  have  built  up  a 
huge  superstructure,  whose  details  they  have  filled  in  according  to 
their  own  fancies,  or  alas  !  too  often  according  to  their  own  in- 
terest  Do  not  be  angry.     I  know  I  cannot  shake  you, 

and  I  think  you  will  find  nothing  flippant  or  bitter — no  vein  of 
noisy  and  shallow  blasphemy  in  my  doubts.  I  feel  solemn  and  sad 
on  the  subject.  If  the  philosophers  of  old  were  right,  and  if  I  am 
right  in  my  religion,  alas  !  for   Christendom  !  and  if  I  am    wrong, 

alas!  for  myself!    It  is  a  subject  on  which  I  cannot  jest 

I  will  write  soon  and  tell  you  some  of  my  temptations." 

CAMBRmoE,  November^  1S40. 

"  I  have  struggled  to  alter  lately,  and  my  alteration  has  beei 
remarked  with  pleasure  by  some,  with  sneers  by  others.  '  Kings- 
ley,  they  say,  is  not  half  as  reckless  as  he  used  to  be.'  .... 
There  is  another  benefit  you  have  conferred  upon  me — careless- 
ness for  the  opinion  of  the  unworthy.  Formerly,  by  a  strange 
paradox,  which  I  see  in  too  many  minds,  I  was  servile  to  the 
opinions  of  the  very  persons  I  despised.  I  had  no  rule  of  morality 
felt  and  believed.  My  morals  were  only  theoretical,  and  public 
opinion  even  more  than  self-interest,  my  only  God.  But  now 
.  .  .  .  that  I  have  found  a  centralizing  point  connecting  my  theo 
retical  notions  of  morality  with  my  aftections  and  my  emotions,  1 
begin  to  find  that  there  is  an  object  to  be  attained  in  morality  be 
yond  public  esteepi  and  self-interest — namely,  the  love  and  thf 
esteem  of  the  good,  and,  consequently,  of  Cod  himself.  The  love 
and  the  esteem  of  the  Deity,  which  I  conceive  is  almost  the  same 


Doubts  and  Difficulties.  47 

thing  as  loving  good  for  its  own  sake,  I  cannot  fiilly  s.ppreciate  yet, 
or  rather  my  natural  feelings  of  the  just  and  the  beautiful,  have,  as 
}ou  say,  been  dimmed  by  neglect."    .... 

January,  1841. 

'*....  I  have  an  instinctive,  perhaps  a  foolish  fear,  of  any- 
thing like  the  use  of  religious  phraseolog)',  because  I  am  sure  that 
f  these  expressions  were  used  by  any  one  placed  as  I  now  am  to 
me,  I  should  doubt  the  writer's  sincerity.  I  find  that  if  I  allow 
myself  ever  to  use,  even  to  my  own  heart,  those  vague  and  trite 
expressions,  which  are  generally  used  as  the  watchwords  of  religion, 
their  familiarity  makes  me  careless,  or  rather  dull  to  their  sense, 
while  tlieir  specious  glibness  makes  me  prove  myself  alternately 
fiend  or  angel,  hurrying  me  on  in  a  mass  of  language,  of  whose 
precise  import  I  have  no  vital  knowledge.  This  is  their  effect  on 
me.  We  know  too  well  what  it  often  is  on  others.  BeUeve,  then, 
every  word  I  write  as  the  painful  expression  of  new  ideas  and 
feelings  in  a  mind  unprejudiced  by  conventionality  in  language, 
or  (I  hope)  in  thought.  ...  I  ask  this  because  I  am  afraid  of 
the  very  suspicion  of  talking  myself  into  a  fancied  conversion.  ] 
see  people  do  this  often,  and  I  see  them  fall  back  again.  And 
♦his,  perhaps,  keeps  me  in  terror  lest  I  should  have  merely  mis- 
taken the  emotions  of  a  few  passionate  moments   for   the   calm 

convictions    which  are  to  guide  me  through  eternity I 

have,  therefore,  in  order  to  prevent  myself  mistaking  words  and 
feelings  for  thoughts,  never  made  use  of  technicalities. 

"I  have  not  much  time  for  poetr\^*  as  I  am  reading  steadily. 
How  I  envy,  as  a  boy,  a  woman's  life  at  the  corresponding  age-  - 
so  free  from  mental  control,  as  ti  the  subjects  of  thought  and 
reading — so  subjected  to  it,  as  to  the  manner  and  the  tone.  We, 
on  the  other  hand,  are  forced  to  drudge  at  the  acquirement  of 
confessedly  obsolete  and  useless  knowledge,  of  worn-out  philoso- 
phies, and  scientific  theories  long  exploded — while  our  finer  senses 
and  our  conscience  are  either  scared  by  sensuality  or  suffered  to 
run  riot  in  imagination  and  excitement,  and  at  last  to  find  every 
woman  who  has  made  even  a  moderate  use  of  her  time,  far  beyond 
us  in  true  philosophy. 

"I  wish  I  were  free  from  this  university  system,  and  free  to  fol- 
fow  such  a  course  of  education  as  Socrates,  and  l>acon,  and  More, 
and  Milton  have  sketched  out."     .... 

Camhridge,  February,  184 1. 

"  I  strive  daily  and  hourly  to  be  calm.  Every  few  minutes  to 
stop  myself  forcibly,  and  recall  my  mind  to  a  sense  of  v'.leie  I  am 

•  During  these  years  of  trial  and  suspense  he  wi  ote  little  poet  y.  *'  /«ria 
Stars  "  and  "  Palinodia"  are  all  that  mark  the  time. 


48  Charles  Kingsley. 

— where  1  am  going — and  whither  I  ought  to  be  tending.  This  is 
most  painful  disciphne,  but  wholesome,  and  much  as  I  dread  to 
look  inward,  I  force  myself  to  it  continually I  am  read- 
ing seven  to  eight  hours  a  day.  I  have  refused  hunting  and  driv- 
ing, and  made  a  solemn  vow  against  cards.  My  trial  of  this  new 
mode  of  life  has  been  short,  but  to  have  begun  it  is  the  greatest 
dititiculty.  There  is  still  much  more  to  be  done,  and  there  are 
more  puie  and  unworldly  motives  of  improvement,  but  actions 
will  p9Ae  the  way  for  motives,  almost  as  much  as  motives  do  for 
actions 

"  ^'ou  cannot  understand  the  excitement  of  animal  exercise 
from'  the  mere  act  of  cutting  wood  or  playing  cricket  to  the 
manias  of  hunting  or  shooting  or  fishing.  On  these  things  more 
or  less  most  young  men  live.  Every  moment  which  is  taken  from 
them  for  duty  or  for  reading  is  felt  to  be  lost — to  be  so  much  time 
sacrificed  to  hard  circumstance.  And  even  those  who  have  calmed 
from  age,  or  from  the  necessity  of  attention  to  a  profession,  which 
has  become  custom,  have  the  same  feelings  flowing  as  an  under 
':uirent  in  their  minds;  and,  if  they  had  not,  they  would  neither 
think  nor  act  like  men.  They  might  be  pure  and  good  and  kind; 
but  they  would  need  that  stern  and  determined  activity,  without 
which  a  man  cannot  act  in  an  extended  sphere  either  for  his  own 
good,  or  for  that  of  his  fellow-creatures.  When  I  talk,  then,  of 
excitement,  1  do  not  wish  to  destroy  excitability,  but  to  direct  it 
into  the  proper  channel,  and  to  bring  it  under  subjection.  I  have 
been  reading  Plato  on  this  very  subject,  and  you  would  be  charmed 
with  his  ideas 

"  Of  the  existence  of  this  quality  (excitability)  there  can  be  no 
doubt,  and  you  must  remember  the  peculiar  trial  which  this" 
(alluding  to  the  necessity  for  hard  reading  and  giving  up  all  amu'je- 
ment  for  the  time  being)  "  [)roves  to  a  young  man  whose  super- 
fluous excitement  has  to  be  broken  in  like  that  of  a  dog  or  a  horse 
— for  it  is  utterly  animal. 

At  this  time  his  physical  strength  was  great.  He  walked  one 
day  from  Cambridge  to  London,  fifty-two  miles,  starting  early  and 
arriving  in  London  at  9  p.m.,  with  ease;  and  for  many  years 
ttfterwaids  a  walk  of  twenty  or  twenty-five  miles  in  a  fresh  country 
was  a  real  refreshment  to  him. 

Speaking  of  "renewed  violent  struggles  to  curb"  himself,  which 
made  him  "  feel  more  agonizingly  weak  than  ever,"  he  says  : 

Cambridge,  February,  1S41. 

"  As  for  my  degree,  I  can  yet  take  high  honors  in  the  Univer 
sity,  and  ought  to  get  my  fellowship  ;  but  I  was  very  idle — aoif 
very  5in<"yl — mv  &i"st  year. 


Reading  and'  Resohttions.  49 

"  I  attend  morning  chapel  at  eight ;  read  from  nine  to  one  or 
»wo  ;  attend  chapel  generally  again  at  five.  I  read  for  some  hours 
m  the  evening.  As  to  my  studies  interesting  me,  if  you  knew  the 
system  and  the  subjects  of  study,  you  would  feel  that  to  be  impos- 
sible. ...  1  wish  to  make  duty  the  only  reason  for  working, 
but  my  heart  is  in  very  different  studies."      .... 

May,  184I. 

*'  My  only  reasons  for  working  for  a  degree  are  that  I  may  entei 
the  world  with  a  certain  prestige  which  may  get  me  a  living  sooner. 
Several  of  my  intimate  friends  here,  strange  to  say,  are 
going  into  the  Church,  so  that  our  rooms,  when  we  are  not  read- 
ing, are  full  of  clerical  conversation.  One  of  my  friends,  the  son 
of  the  English  Minister  at  Turin,  goes  up  for  ordination  next  week. 
How  I  &\\Ny  him  his  change  of  life.  I  feel  as  if,  once  in  the 
Church,  I  could  cling  so  much  closer  to  God.  I  feel  more  and 
more  daily  that  a  clergyman's  life  is  the  one  for  which  both  my 
physique  and  fnorale  were  intended — that  the  profession  will  check 
and  guide  the  faulty  parts  of  my  mind,  while  it  gives  full  room  for 
my  energy — that  energy  which  had  so  nearly  ruined  me  ;  but  will 
now  be  devoted  utterly,  I  hope,  to  the  service  of  God.  My  views 
of  theoretical  religion  are  getting  more  clear  daily,  as  I  see  more 
completely  the  necessity  of  faith.  What  a  noble  mind  Novalis's 
must  have  been.     Do  you  know  his  works  ?  or  have  you  read  the 

review  of  them  in  Carlyle?    If  not,  pray  do To  publish 

a  translation  of  them  will  be  one  of  the  first  results  of  my  German 
studies,  after  my  degree 

"I  forgot  to  thank  you  for  the  books.  I  am  uttei?y  delighted 
with  them." 

The  books  referred  to  were  Carlyle' s  works,  and  Coleridge's 
'"Aids  to  Reflection."  Carlyle's  "French  Revolution,"  sent  by 
the  same  friend,  had  had  a  remarkable  effect  on  his  mind  before 
he  decided  upon  taking  holy  orders,  in  estabHshing  and  intensifying 
bis  belief  in  God's  righteous  government  of  the  world.  The  "  Mis- 
cellanies," and  "Past  and  Present,"  followed  it  up,  and  were  most 
useful  to  him,  as  was  Maurice's  "Kingdom  of  Christ,"  which  she 
sent  at  a  later  period. 

Sully,  yitne  12,  1841. 

"My  birth-night.  I  have  been  for  the  last  hour  on  the  sea-shore, 
not  dreaming,  but  thinking  deeply  and  strongl)',  and  forming  deter- 
minaticns  which  are  to  affect  my  destiny  through  time  and  through 
eternity.  Before  the  sleeping  eartn  and  the  sleepless  sea  a.nd  stars 
I  have  devoted  myself  to  God  ;  a  vow  never  (if  He  gives  me  the 
faith  I  pray  foi)  to  be  recalled."  .... 
4 


50  Charles  Kings  ley. 

A  great  change  had  long  been  coming  over  him,  to  which  in  a 
previous  letter  he  points  when  he  speaks  of  himself  as 

"Saved — saved  from  the  wild  pride  and  darkling  tempests  of 
scepticism,  and  from  the  sensuality  and  dissipation  into  which  my 
own  rashness  and  vanity  had  hurried  me  before  I  knew  you.  Saved 
from  a  hunter's  life  on  the  Prairies,  from  becoming  a  savage,  and 
perhaps  worse.  Saved  from  all  this,  and  restored  to  my  country 
ind  my  God,  and  able  to  believe.  And  I  do  believe,  firmly  and 
practically,  -s  a  subject  of  prayer,  and  a  rule  of  every  action  of  my 
life."     .... 

The  Rev.  James  Montagu,  Rector  of  Hawkwell,  an  old  College 
^iend,  writing  to  the  editor  in  1876,  refers  to  this  period  thus  : 

•*  Our  old  Cambridge  intercourse  was  to  me  very  plea^nnt.  There 
was  something  in  dear  Charles's  young  days  then,  which  drew  mo 
(his  senior  by  some  six  or  eight  years)  very  much  to  him.  There 
was  growing  up  in  his  brain,  then  indistinct  and  shadowy,  much  of 
that  which  came  out  in  riper  manhood.  There  was  a  dreaminess 
about  him  at  times  which  caused  remarks  to  be  made  about  him. 
I  have  had  it  said  to  me,  '  You  seem  to  be  much  with  Kingsley,  is 
he  not  a  little  odd  and  cracky  ? '  and  I  can  remember  my  answer 
— 'It  would  take  two  or  three  of  our  heads  to  mend  the  crack.' 
He  would  come  up  to  my  room  with,  'Are  you  busy,  Monty?' 
*  Not  too  busy  for  a  chat  with  you,  Kingsley.'  And  then  I  must 
tell  you  how  artfully  and  cunningly  I  used  to  slip  paper  and  pen- 
cils within  his  reach  ;  for  I  knew  his  wont  to  go  on  sketching  all 
sorts  of  fancifiil  things,  while  we  worried  our  young  heads  over 
other  dreams  as  fanciful.  Many  of  those  pleasant  memories  come 
cropping  out  at  times,  though  long  years  have  i)assed — and  long 
years  make  memory  weak.  Since  those  days,  from  his  busy  life, 
our  intercourse  was  but  slight.  1  have  not  forgotten  the  i^w  pleas- 
ant days  spent  at  Eversley ;  nor  shall  I  ever  lose  the  pride  I  feel 
m  being  called  Charles  Kingsley's  friend." 

His  every-day  college  life,  his  love  of  art  and  drawing  powers 
are  recalled  by  another  friend,  now  distinguished  himself,  as  archi- 
tect of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  PYank  Penrose,  Esq.,  P.S.A.,  &c.,  &c, 

"My  first  acquaintance  with  Charles  Kingsley  was  at  South  Clif- 
ton, Lincolnshire,  when  I  must  have  had  some  roini^s  with  him  as 
a  little  boy,  say  in  1823  ;  but  I  saw  nothing  of  him  from  that  time 
till  he  came  up  to  Magdalene  College,  Cambridge,  as  a  freshman, 
in  October,  1838,  with  me,  and  I  welcomed  him  as  something  more 


Under giadMate  Days,  5 \ 

than  a  casual  acquaintance.  We  began  duly  attending  the  Col- 
k»ge  lectures,  and  I  saw  at  once  that  he  was  a  :nan  of  no  ordinary 
lalents.  I  was  ultimately  the  best  of  my  years  in  mathematics  ; 
but,  if  I  remember  rightly,  he  at  first  held  his  own  on  those  sub' 
jects,  and  it  was  by  his  own  vacating  the  ground  that  the  tortoise 

gave  him  the  go-by  in  that  department I  was  always 

interested  in  your  husband's  convcisation,  and  he  was,  I  think,  the 
only  man  in  Cambridge  with  whom  1  ever  got  any  art  talk. 
.  .  In  the  boating  department  he  was  under  my  command,  as 
captain  of  the  Magdalene  Boat  Club,  in  1840-41  ;  he  never,  to 
the  best  of  my  belief,  rowed  in  the  races  of  our  first  boat.  In  those 
of  the  second  boat  he  did  constantly,  and  was  regular  on  practis- 
ing days What  I  remember  best  are  his  sketches  of 

figure  subjects — his  showing  me  his  Cambridge  English  verse  prize 
poem,  the  Crusades.  It  was  unsuccessful,  but  it  showed  the  latent 
poetic  genius. 

"  I  nmst  add  his  dog  Muzzie,  a  clever,  sedate-looking  grey 
Scotch  terrier,  of  whom  he  was  very  fond.  My  last  shall  be  a 
negative  point,  and  you  will  not  think  it  unacceptable.  I  never 
saw  him  do  anything  that  I  should  have  any  objection  to  tell  you." 

"  '  We  were  both  very  idle,'  said  Mr.  J.  Barstow,  '  in  those  days 
■ — he  idler  than  I  apparently,  for  he  often  asked  me  to  finish  his 
papers  for  him,  that  he  might  have  something  to  j^resent  to  our 
common  tutor.  He  lived  very  much  alone.  I  think  he  was  fonder 
of  the  saddle  than  the  boats  ;  and  I  saw  but  little  of  him,  but  I 
liked  and  admired  much  what  I  saw.'  " 

During  the  spring  of  this  year  he  decided  on  the  Church  as  his 
profession  instead  of  the  law.  His  name  had  been  down  at  Lin- 
coln's-inn,  but  circumstances  and  his  own  convictions  altered  his 
\Xxn  of  life,  a  change  which  he  never  regretted  for  a  moment. 

TO    HIS    MOTHER. 

Shelford,  Cambridge,  June  23,  1841. 

*'  I  have  been  reading  the  Edinburgh  Review  (April,  1841),  on 
No.  90  of  the  Tracts  for  the  Times,  and  I  wish  I  could  transcribe 

every  word,  anvi  send  it  to .     Whether  wilful  or  self-deceived, 

these  men  are  Jesuits,  takii.g  the  oath  to  the  Articles  with  moral 
iTse'vations  which  allow  them  to  explain  them  away  in  senses 
utterly  difterent  from  those  of  their  authors.  All  the  worst  doctri- 
nal features  of  Popery  Mr.  Newman  professes  to  believe  in." 

Dr.  Bateson,  Master  of  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge,  his  tutor 
much  beloved,  whose  kindly  reception  i>f  him  when  he  returned 


52  L/tarles  Kings  ley. 

as  Regius  Professor  of  Modern  History  in  i860,  was  a  source  (A 
grateful  joy  to  him,  thus  recalls  the  undergraduate,  to  whom  hi« 
help  was  so  important : 

St.  John's,  Decemler,  1875. 

"  Charles  Kingsley  came  to  Cambridge  sufficiently  well  pre 
pared.  He  was  almost  immediately  made  a  scholar  of  Magdalene, 
and  he  was  prizeman  at  the  college  examination  of  freshmen  in 
jane,  1839. 

"  I  look  back  with  much  satisfaction,  and  shall  always  reflect 
with  pride  on  my  engagement  to  serve  lum  in  the  capacity  of  clas- 
sical private  tutor.  He  was  my  pupil  for  his  three  first  terms,  from 
October,  1838,  to  Midsummer,  1839,  and  again  from  October, 
1840,  to  the  end  of  the  Long  Vacation,  1841.  Being  appointed 
in  the  Michaelmas  term  of  that  year  an  examiner  for  the  classical 
tripos  for  the  following  year,  for  which  he  was  to  be  a  candidate,  I 
'vas  unable  to  continue  my  engagement  for  a  longer  time. 

"  It  is  too  true,  as  no  one  la^nented  more  than  himself,  that 
from  various  causes' he  made  but  an  indifferent  use  of  the  opportu- 
nities which  his  residence  in  Cambridge  afforded  him,  at  all  events 
for  the  greater  part  of  the  time.  In  this  respect  he  differs  little 
from  many  of  the  men  of  poetic  genius  who  have  been  under- 
graduates at  our  universities.  Whether  it  is  that  our  system  of 
training  and  of  frequent  examinations,  has  something  in  it  which 
is  repulsive  and  uncongenial,  or  that  their  fervid  and  impulsive  na- 
tures are  unable  to  brook  the  restraint  of  our  discipline,  certain  it 
is  that  many  youths  of  most  brilliant  ]iromise,  who  have  lived  to 
achieve  great  things  in  after  years,  have  left  our  colleges  with  but 
little  cause  to  congratulate  themselves  on  time  well  spent  or 
talents  well  employed.  My  own  relations  with  Charles  Kingsley 
in  those  early  days  were  always  agreeable,  although  I  was  unable 
to  induce  him  to  apply  himself  with  any  energy  to  his  classical 
work,  until  quite  the  close  of  his  undergraduate  career.  Then, 
iivJeed,  he  seemed  an  altered  man.  With  wonderful  ability  and 
fiuri^rising  quickness  during  the  last  few  months  he  made  rapid 
stiidcs,  and  1  can  well  remember  admiring  his  papers,  more  espe- 
cially those  of  Latin  prose  and  verse,  which  he  sent  up  for  the 
classical  tripos.  They  exhibited  excellence  and  power,  due  far 
more  to  native  talent  than  to  inilustry  or  study,  and  raised  him  to 
a  place  in  the  first  class  of  the  classical  tripos.  For  after  all  his 
degree  was  a  good  one,  as  senior  optime  in  mathematics,  and  a 
first  class  in  classics  ;  but  I  must  add  that  it  was  nothing  compared 
to  what  might  have  been  attained  by  a  man  of  'his  powers.  If  he 
had  worked  as  an  undergraduate  with  only  a  small  portion  of  the 
industry  and  energy  which  he  exhibited  after  he  left  Cambridge, 
there  was  no  academic  distinction  that  would  not  have  been  withii 
his  reach  " 


Incident  of  the  Examination.  53 

An  incident  occurred  during  the  examination  which  was  much 
talked  of  at  tlie  time,  and  is  recalled  by  the  Rev.  Rigby  Kew 
ley,  now  Rector  of  Baldock,  and  Honorary  Canon  of  Rochester : 

"  On  one  morning  but  one  question  remained  of  a  paper  on 
mechanics,  '  Describe  a  Common  Pump.'  Of  the  internal  ma- 
chinery  of  a  pump  Kingsley  was  unable  to  render  a  scientific  ac- 
count, but  of  the  outside  his  vivid  imagination  supplied  a  picture 
which  his  facile  pencil  soon  transferred  to  paper.  Under  the  head- 
ing, 'Describe  a  Pump,'  he  drew  a  grand  village  pump  in  the 
midst  of  a  broad  green,  and  opposite  the  porch  of  an  ancient 
church.  By  the  side  of  the  pump  stood,  in  all  pomposity  of  his 
office,  the  village  beadle,  with  uniform  and  baton.  Around  were 
women  and  children  of  all  ages,  shapes,  dress,  and  sizes,  each  car- 
rying a  crock,  a  jug,  a  bucket,  or  some  vessel  large  or  smalj. 
These  were  drawn  with  considerable  power,  and  the  whole  was 
lighted  up  with  his  deep  vein  of  huuior ;  while  around  the  pump 
itself  was  a  huge  chain,  padlocked,  and  surrounded  by  a  notice, 
'  This  pump  locked  during  Divine  service.'  This,  Kingsley  sent 
up  to  the  examiner  as  his  answer  to  the  question.  I  know  not 
whether  he  got  any  marks  for  it ;  but  it  was  so  clever  that  the 
moderator  of  the  year  had  it  framed  and  hung  up  on  the  wall  of 
his  room." 

He  left  Cambridge  in  February,  much  exhausted  in  body  and 
mind,  from  having,  by  six  months'  desperate  reading,  done  work 
which  should  have  been  spreid  over  his  three  years  of  University 
life.  He  came  out  in  honors,  first-class  in  classics,  and  senior  opt 
io  mathematics. 


CHAPTER  IV 

1S42 — 1843. 
Aged  23-24. 

Reads  for  r>s»i^  Orden; — Correspondence — Ordained  Deacon — Settles  at  Eterslej 

— Parish  Work — Letters. 

During  the  spring,  while  slowly  recovering  the  exhaustion  of  his 
degree  and  reading  for  Holy  Orders,  he  had  the  otTer  of  two  cura- 
cies  in  Hampshire,  at  Kingsley  and  Eversley.  He  chose  the 
latter, 

Chelsea,  April,  1842. 

" .  .  .1  hope  to  be  ordained  in  July  to  the  Curacy  of  Evers- 
ley in  Hampshire.  In  the  midst  of  lovely  scenery — rich — but  not 
exciting.  And  you  will  be  with  me  in  your  thoughts,  in  my  village 
visits,  and  my  moorland  walks,  when  I  am  drinking  in  from  man, 
and  nature,  the  good  and  the  beautiful,  while  I  purge  in  my  voca- 
tion the  evil,  and  raise  up  the  falling  and  the  faint.  Can  I  not  do 
it  ?  for  have  I  not  fainted  and  fallen  ?  And  do  I  not  know  too 
well  the  bitterness  that  is  from  without,  as  well  as  the  more  dire 
one,  from  within  ....  My  reading  at  present  must  be  exclu- 
sively confined  to  divinity — not  so  yours.  You  may  still  range 
freely  among  the  meadows  of  the  beautiful,  while  I  am  mining  in 
the  deep  mountains  of  the  true.  And  so  it  should  be  through  life 
The  woman's  part  should  be  to  cultivate  the  affections  and  the 
imagination  ;  the  man's  the  intellect  of  their  common  soul.  She 
must  teach  him  how  to  apply  his  knowledge  to  men's  hearts.  He 
must  teach  her  how  to  arrange  that  knowledge  into  practical  and 
theoretical  forms.  In  this  the  woman  has  the  nobler  task.  But 
^here  is  one  more  noble  still — to  find  out  from  the  notices  of 
the  universe,  and  the  revelation  of  God,  and  the  uninspired  truth 
which  he  has  made  his  creatures  to  declare  even  in  heathen  lands, 
to  find  out  from  all  these  the  pure  mind  of  God,  and  the  eternal 
law  whereby  He  made  us  and  governs  us.  This  is  true  science  ; 
aiid  this,  as  we  discover  it,  will  replace  p'nar.to.us  by  reality,  and 
that  darkling  taper  of  '  common  sense,'  by  the  glorious  light  of  cer 


The  Man  and  the   Woman.  55 

tainty.  For  this  the  man  must  bring  his  philosophy,  and  the 
woman  her  exquisite  sense  of  the  beautiful  and  the  just,  and  all 
hearts  and  all  lands  shall  lie  open  before  them,  as  they  gradually 
know  them  one  by  one  !  That  glorious  word  knoiv — it  is  God's 
attribute,  and  includes  in  itself  all  others.  Love — truth — all  are 
parts  of  that  awful  power  of  knowing,  at  a  single  glance,  from  and 
to  all  eternit}',  what  a  thing  is  in  its  essence,  its  properties,  and  its 
relations  to  the  whole  universe  through  all  time  !  I  feel  awe- 
struck wlienever  I  see  that  word  used  rightly,  and  I  never,  if  I  can 
remember,  use  it  myself  of  myself.  But  to  us,  as  to  dying  Schiller, 
hereafter  many  things  will  become  plain  and  clear.  And  this  is  no 
dream  of  romance.  It  is  what  many  have  approximated  to  before 
us,  with  less  intellectual,  and  no  greater  spiritual  advantages,  and 
strange  to  say,  some  of  them  alone — buried  in  cloisters  seldcm — 
in  studies  often — some,  worst  of  all,  worn  down  by  the  hourly 
misery  of  a  wife  who  neither  loved  them  nor  felt  for  them  :  but  to 
those  who,  through  love,  have  once  caught  a  glimpse  of  '  the  great 
secret,'  what  may  they  not  do  by  it  in  years  of  love  and  thought  ? 
For  this  heavenly  knowledge  is  not,  as  boyish  enthusiasts  fancy, 
the  work  of  a  day  or  a  year.  Youth  will  pass  before  we  shall  have 
made  anything  but  a  slight  approximation  to  it,  and  having  handed 
down  to  our  children  the  little  wisdom  we  shall  have  amassec 
while  here,  we  shall  commend  them  to  God,  and  enter  eternity 
very  little  wiser  in  proportion  to  the  universal  knowledge  than  we 
were  when  we  left  it  at  our  birth. 

"  But  still  if  our  plans  are  not  for  time,  but  for  eternity,  our 
knowledge,  and  therefore  our  love  to  God,  to  each  other,  to  our- 
selves, to  everything,  will  progress  for  ever. 

*'  And  this  scheme  is  practical  too — for  the  attainment  of  this 
heavenly  wisdom  requires  neither  ecstasy  nor  revelation,  but  prayer, 
and  watchfulness,  and  observation,  and  deep  and  solemn  thought. 
And  two  great  rules  for  its  attainment  are  simple  enough — '  Never 
forget  what  and  where  you  are  ; '  and,  '  Grieve  not  the  Holy  Spirit.' 
And  it  is  not  only  compatible  with  our  duties  as  priests  of  the 
Eternal,  but  includes  them  as  one  of  the  means  to  its  attainment, 
for  '  if  a  man  will  do  God's  will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine, 
whether  it  be  of  God.'  They  do  not  speak  without  scriptural  as> 
(veil  as  theoretical  foundation,  who  think  that  we  may  hereafter  be 
called  upon  to  preach  God  to  other  worlds  beside  our  own  ;  and 
if  this  be  so,  does  not  the  acquirement  of  this  knowledge  become 
a  duty  ?  Knowledge  and  love  are  reciprocal.  He  who  loves 
knows.  He  who  knows  loves.  Saint  John  is  the  example  of  che 
first,  Saiit  Paul  of  the  second." 


In  the  interval  between  Cambridge  and  h's  curacy  he  began  tc 
write  the  life  cf  St.  Elizabeth  of  Hungary,  his  ideal  saint,  no' 


56  Charhs  Kingsley, 

intending  it  for  publication,  but  as  a  gift  book  to  his  wife  en  his 
marriage  day,  if  that  day  should  ever  come. 

May,  1842. 

"  When  it  is  finished,"  he  says,  "  I  have  anothei  work  of  thi 
same  kind  to  begin — a  life  of  St.  Theresa — as  a  specimen  uf  the 
dreamy  mystic,  in  contrast  with  the  working  ascetic,  St.  Elizabeth, 
and  to  contrast  the  celibate  saint  with  the  married  one. 

"  For  this  we  must  read  Tersteegen,  Jacob  Behmen,  Madame 
Guyon,  Alban  Butler,  Fenelon,  some  of  Origen  and  Clemens  Alex- 
andiinus,  and  Coleridge's  '  Aids,'  &c.,  also  some  of  Kant,  and  a 
German  history  of  mysticism.  In  order  to  understand  puritanism 
and  evangelicalism,  we  must  thoroughly  understand  asceticism  and 
mysticism,  which  have  to  be  eradicated  froui  them  in  preaching  our 
*  Message.'  " 

June  8,  1S42. 

"Amuse  yourself — get  poetry  and  read  it — I  have  a  book  called 
'Tennyson's  Poems,'  the  most  beautiful  poetry  of  the  last  fifteei: 
years     ....     Shall  I  send  :  you  ?     .     .     .     . 

"  Tell  me  if  I  am  ever  obscure  in  my  expressions,  and  do  not 
fancy  that  if  I  am  obscure  I  am  therefore  deep.  If  I  w^ere  really 
deep,  all  the  world  would  understand,  though  they  might  not  appre- 
ciate. The  perfectly  popular  style  is  the  perfectly  scientific  one. 
Tell  me  then  when  I  am  obscure,  for  to  me  an  obscurity  is  a  rea- 
son for  suspecting  a  fallacy  ....  Pray  simply,  '  O  God  lead 
us  into  all  Truth,  and  make  us  like  little  children.'  Do  not  repine 
when  you  feel  no  pleasure  in  the  offices  of  religion,  the  change  is 
in  you,  and  not  in  God,  and  the  fact  of  your  being  sensible  of,  and 
sorry  for  this  change,  shows  that  it  is  caused  by  no  cessation  of 
your  love  to  God  or  his  grace  to  you — but  by  physical  weakness." 

Early  in  July  he  went  to  Farnham  for  his  ordination.  Froiu 
whence  he  writes  : — 

July  7,  I  tip. 

"  I  have  finished  the  first  day's  examination  better  than  I  ex 
pected,  and  though  I  was  so  nervous  at  first  that  I  could  hardlj 
stand,  I  recovered  myself  tolerably  afterwards.      .     .      ." 

"  I  shall  hope  to  do  tolerably  to-morrow,  and  the  greater  part  O 
Saturday  I  shall  give  up  to  prayer  and  meditation,  and  fasting.'' 

Farnham,  July  10,  1842. 

".  .  ,  God's  mercies  are  new  every  morning.  Here  I  ai\ 
waiting  to  De  admitted  in  a  few  hours  to  His  holy  ministry,  ant- 
take  refug  ;  for  ever  in  His  Temple  !  .  .  .  .  Yet  it  is  an  awfiu 
thing  !  for  we  promise,  virtually  at  least,  to  renounce  this  day  not 


Preparattou  for  Ordination.  57 

only  the  devil  and  the  flesh,  but  the  \vorl»t ; — to  do  nothing,  know 
nothing,  which  shall  not  tend  to  the  furthei-ance  of  God's  Kingdom, 
or  the-  assimilation  of  ourselves  to  the  Great  Ideal,  and  to  our 
proper  place  and  rank  in  the  great  system  whose  harmony  we  are 
to  labor  to  restore.  And  can  we  restore  harmony  to  the  Church, 
unless  we  have  restored  it  to  ourselves  ?  If  our  own  souls  are  dis 
cords  to  the  celestial  key,  the  immutable  symphonies  which  revela- 
tion gives  us  to  hear,  can  we  restore  the  concord  of  the  perplexed 
vibrations  round  us  ?  .  .  .  .  We  must  be  holy  !  and  to  be  holy 
we  must  believe  rightly  as  well  as  pray  earnestly.  We  must  brin^ 
to  the  well  of  truth  a  spirit  purified  from  all  previous  fancies,  all 
medicines  of  our  own  which  may  adulterate  the  water  of  life  !  We 
must  take  of  that  and  not  of  our  own,  and  show  it  to  mankind.  It 
is  that  glory  in  the  beauty  of  truth,  which  was  my  idol,  even  when 
I  did  not  practise  or  even  know  truth.  But  now  that  I  know  it,  I 
can  practise  it,  and  carry  it  out  into  the  details  of  life ;  now  I  am 
hapi)y  ;  now  I  am  safe !     .     .     .     . 

"  But  back  !  back  to  the  thought  that  in  a  few  hours  my  whole 
soul  will  be  waiting  silently  for  the  seals  of  admission  to  God's  ser- 
vice, of  which  honor  I  dare  hardly  think  myself  worthy,  while  I 
dare  not  think  that  God  would  allow  me  to  enter  on  them  unwor- 
thily ....  Night  and  morning,  for  months,  my  prayer  has 
been  :  '  O  God  if  I  am  not  worthy ;  if  my  sin  in  leading  souls 
from  Thee  is  still  unpardoned  ;  if  I  am  desiring  to  be  a  deacon  not 
wholly  for  the  sake  of  serving  Thee  ;  if  it  be  necessary  to  show  me 
my  weakness  and  the  holiness  of  Thy  office  still  more  strongly,  O 
God  reject  me  ! '  and  while  I  shuddered  for  your  sake  at  the  idea 
of  a  repulse,  I  prayed  to  be  repulsed  if  it  were  necessary,  and  in- 
cluded that  in  the  meaning  of  my  petition  '  Thy  will  be  done.' 
After  this  what  can  I  consider  my  acceptance  but  as  a  proof  that  I 
have  not  sinned  too  deeply  for  escape  !  as  an  earnest  that  God  has 
heard  my  prayer  and  will  bless  my  ministry,  and  enable  me  not 
only  to  raise  myself,  but  to  lift  others  with  me!  Oh  !  my  soul,  my 
body,  my  intellect,  my  very  love,  I  dedicate  you  all  to  God  !  An.l 
not  mine  only  ....  to  be  an  example  and  an  instrument 
of  holiness  before  the  Lord  for  ever,  to  dwell  in  His  courts,  tu 
purge  His  Temple,  to  feed  His  sheep,  to  carry  the  lambs  and  bear 
ihem  to  that  foster-mother  whose  love  never  fails,  whose  eye  nevei 
sleeps,  the  Bride  of  God,  the  Church  of  Christ !....! 
would  have  written  when  I  knew  of  my  success  yesterday,  bul 
there  was  no  town  post. 

"  Direct  to  me  next  at  Evejsley  !     .     .     .     ." 

And  now  Charles  Kingsley  settled  down,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
three,  in  Eversley  ;  little  thinking  it  would  be  his  home  for  thirty- 
three  years 


58  Claries  KingsCey. 

The  parish  of  Eversley  (Aper's  lea)  was  moslly  common  land 
when  he  became  curate,  divided  into  three  hamlets,  each  standing 
on  its  own  little  green,  surrounded  by  the  moorland,  with  young 
forests  of  self-sown  fir  trees  cropping  up  in  every  direction.  The 
population  was  very  scattered — "  heth  croppers"  from  time  imme- 
morial and  poachers  by  instinct  and  heritage.  It  was  on  the 
borders  of  Old  Windsor  Forest,  the  boundaries  of  which  reached 
the  adjoining  parish  of  Finchampstead ;  and  the  old  men  could 
remember  the  time  when  many  a  royal  deer  used  to  stray  into 
Eversley  parish.  Every  man  in  those  days  could  snare  his  hare, 
and  catch  a  good  dinner  of  fish  in  waters  not  then  strictly  pre- 
served ;  and  the  old  women  would  tell  of  the  handsome  muffs  and 
tippets,  made  of  pheasants'  feathers,  not  bought  with  silver,  which 
Siiey  wore  in  their  young  days. 

Eversley  Manor,  it  is  said,  was  granted  to  the  monks  of  West- 
minster by  a  charter  from  Edward  the  Confessor.  We  know  fron\ 
the  charter  that  there  was  then  a  church  at  Eversley.  William  the 
Conqueror  renewed  the  grant  of  the  manor. 

It  appears  still  to  have  belonged  to  the  church  of  Westminster, 
in  1280  ;  but  it  must  ere  long  have  passed  from  its  possession,  foi 
Btshop  AVoodlock  of  Winchester,  in  the  early  years  of  the  four- 
teenth century,  instituted  a  priest  to  Eversley,  on  the  presentation 
of  Nicholas  Heigheman.  The  chancel  of  the  church  dates  from 
about  the  time  of  Henry  VII. 

The  gieat  peculiarity  of  the  parish  are  the  fir  trees,  of  which 
there  are  three  fine  specimens  on  the  rectory  lawn. 

For  the  first  six  weeks  of  his  curate  life  he  lived  in  the  rectory 
house,  and  the  following  letter  contained  a  sketch  of  the  lawn  and, 
glebe  from  the  drawing-room  windows  and  a  plan  of  the  room. 

Eversley  Rectory,  July  14,  1842. 

"  Can  you  understand  my  sketch  ?  I  am  no  drawer  of  trees, 
but  the  view  is  beautiful.  The  ground  slopes  upward  from  the 
windows  to  a  sunk  fence  and  road,  without  banks  or  hedges,  and 
risss  in  the  furze  hill  in  the  drawing,  which  hill  is  perfectly  beauti- 
ful in  light  and  shade,  and  color  ....  Behind  the  acacia  on 
the  lawn  you  get  the  first  gli.npse  of  the  fir-forests  and  moors,  of 
which  five-sixths  of  my  parish  consist.  Those  delicious  self-sown 
firs  !  Every  step  I  wander  they  whisper  to  me  of  you,  the  delicious 
past  melting  into  the  more  delicious  future.  '  Wliat  has  been,  shalh 
be,'  they  say  !      I  went  the  other  day  to  Bramshill  Park,  the  horn* 


Daily  Duties.  59 

of  the  seigneur  du  pays  here,  Sir  John  Cope.  And  there  I  saw  the 
\'ery  tree  where  an  ancestor  of  mine,  Archbishop  Abbot,  in  Jarnes 
the  First's  time,  shot  the  keeper  by  accident  !  I  sat  under  the 
tree,  and  it  all  seemed  to  me  like  a  present  reality.  I  could  fancy 
the  noble  old  man,  very  different  then  from  his  picture  as  it  hangs 
in  the  dining  room  at  Chelsea.  I  could  fancy  the  deer  sweeping 
by,  and  the  rattle  of  the  cross-bow,  and  the  white  splinters  spark 
ling  off  the  fated  tree  as  the  bolt  glanced  and  turned — and  theo 
the  death  shriek,  and  the  stagger,  and  the  heavy  fall  of  the  sturdy 
forester — and  the  bow  dropping  from  the  old  man's  hands,  and  the 
blood  sinking  to  his  heart  in  one  chilling  rush,  and  his  glorious 
features  collapsing  into  that  look  of  changeless  and  rigid  sorrow, 
which  haunted  me  in  the  portrait  upon  tlie  wall  in  childhood.  He 
never  smiled  again  !  And  that  solemn  form  always  spoke  to  me, 
though  I  did  not  then  know  what  it  meant.  It  is  strange  that  this 
is  almost  the  only  portrait  saved  in  the  wreck  of  our  family.*  As 
i  sat  under  the  tree,  there  seemed  to  be  a  solemn  and  remorseful 
moan  in  the  long  branches,  mixed  with  the  airy  whisper  of  the 
lighter  leaves  that  told  of  present  as  well  as  past  ! 

"  I  go  to  the  school  every  day,  and  teach  as  long  as  I  can  stand 
the  heat  and  smell.  The  kw  children  are  in  a  room  ten  feet 
square  and  seven  feet  high.  I  am  going  after  dinner  to  read  to  an 
old  woman  of  87;  so  you  see  I  have  begun.  This  is  a  plan  oi 
my  room.  It  is  a  large,  low,  front  room,  with  a  light  paper  and 
drab  curtains,  and  a  large  bow  window,  where  I  sit,  poor  me, 
solitary  in  one  corner." 

Before  his  coming,  the  church  services  had  been  utterly  neg- 
lected. It  sometimes  happened  that  when  the  rector  had  a  cold, 
or  some  trifling  ailment,  he  would  send  the  clerk  to  the  church 
door  at  eleven,  to  inform  the  few  who  attended  that  there  would  be 
no  service.  In  consequence  the  ale-houses  were  full  on  Sunday 
and  the  church  empty,  and  it  was  up-hill  work  getting  a  congrega- 
tion together. 

July  17th  was  the  young  curate's  first  day  of  pubUc  ministration 
in  Eversley  Church,  and  he  felt  it  deeply. 


*  This  picture  of  Archbishop  Abbot,  by  Vandyke,  came  into  the  family 
through  William  Kingsley,  born  1626,  Gentleman  of  the  Privy  Chamber  to 
Charles  II.  son  of  William  Kingsley,  Archdeacon  of  Canterbury,  and  Damaris 
his  wife,  who  was  niece  to  Robertus  Abbot,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  The 
archbishop  was  a  great  friend  of  Lord  Zouche,  then  owner  of  Bramshill  Park, 
and  while  on  a  visit  to  him  killed  the  keeper  by  accident  with  a  bolt  from  hii 
cross-bow  aimed  at  a  stagu  He  was  suspended  for  a  time,  and,  it  is  said.  ncTCi 
tii.iled  agai;i. 


60  '  Charles  Kings  ley. 

"I  was  not  nervous,"  he  says,  "for  I  had  prayed  before  goin| 
into  the  desk  that  I  might  remember  that  I  was  not  speaking  or 
my  own  authority,  but  on  God's,  and  the  feeling  that  the  responsi- 
bihty  (if  I  may  so  speak)  was  on  God  and  not  on  me  quieted  the 
weak  terror  I  have  of  offending  people." 

EvERSLEY,  Aug.,  1S42. 

"  My  views  of  poverty  are  very  strange.  Had  I  been  a  Haroun 
Alraschid,  with  every  sense  '  lapped  in  Elysium,'  I  could  have  en- 
joyed all.  The  man  who  cannot  enjoy,  cannot  be  healthy,  and 
cannot  be  self-denying.  But  had  I  been  a  prairie  hunter,  cold  and 
nakedness  and  toil  would  have  been  no  evils  to  me.  I  could  have 
enjoyed  that  which  was  given  me,  and  never,  I  believe  firmly,  rf- 
»nembered  that  there  were  greater  sensual  pleasures  in  life." 

"  Never  depreciate,  according  to  the  foolish  way  of  sentimental- 
ists, the  brotherly  love  of  men Remember  the  sanc- 
tity attached  to  it  in  Scripture,  and  believe  that  in  this,  as  in  other 
things,  the  man  is  the  stronger  vessel.  There  is  something  awful ! 
spiritual,  in  men's  love  for  each  other  !  It  requires  not  even  the 
presence  of  the  beloved  brother  or  friend — it  requires  no  expres- 
sion— it  is  too  deep  for  emotion.  It  goes  on  its  way  hke  a  mighty 
unconscious  sLream,  that  brother's  love,  and  sacrifices  itself  often 
for  a  man  with  whom  it  never  exchanges  a  word.  I  could  tell  you 
a  thousand  stories — I  will  some  day — to  prove  the  mysterious 
abysses  of  a  man's  heart — God's  image  !  Here  is  one.  There 
were  two  Dover  coachmen — twins.  One  drove  the  up  coach  the 
other  the  down  for  thirty  years,  so  that  they  never  saw  each  other 
night  or  day,  but  when  they  whirled  past  once  a  day,  each  on  his 
box,  on  their  restless  homeless  errand.  They  never  noticed 
each  other  in  passing  but  by  the  jerk  of  the  wrist,  which  is  the  cant 
sign  of  recognition  among  horse-driving  men.  Brutes  !  the  senti- 
mentalist will  say — for  they  were  both  fat,  jolly  men  !  And  when 
one  of  them  died,  the  other  took  to  his  bed  in  a  few  days,  in  per- 
fect liealth,  and  pined  away  and  died  also  !  His  words  were  '  Now 
Tom  is  gone,  I  can't  stay.'  Was  not  that  spirit  love?  That  stor) 
always  makes  me  ready  to  cry.  And  cases  as  strong  are  common.' 

EvEKSLEY,  1S.12. 

*' .     .     .     The  body  the  temple  of  the  Living  (jod 

There  has  always  seemed  to  me  something  impious  in  the  neglect 
of  personal  health,  strength,  and  beaut)'^,  which  the  religious  and 
sometimes  clergymen  of  this  day  affe;t.  It  is  very  often  a  mere 
form  of  laziness  and  untidiness  !  ....  I  should  be  ashameo 
of  being  weak.     I  could  not  dc  half  t'le  little  good  I  do  do  here,  ii 


Physical  Exercise.  6  s 

It  were  not  for  that  strength  and  activity  which  some  consider 
coarse  and  degrading.  Many  clergymen  would  half  kill  themselv^y 
i^  the)-  did  what  I  do.  And  though  they  might  walk  about  jis 
n?uich,  they  would  neglect  exercise  of  the  arms  and  chest,  and  be- 
come dyspeptic  or  consumptive.  Do  not  be  afraid  of  my  over- 
working myself  If  I  stop,  I  go  down.  I  must  work.  .... 
How  merciful  God  has  been  in  turning  all  the  strength  and  hardi- 
hood I  gained  in  snipe  shooting  and  hunting,  and  rowing  and  jack, 
fishing  in  those  magnificent  fens  to  His  work !  While  I  was  follow- 
ing my  own  fancies  He  was  preparing  me  for  His  work.  I  could 
wish  I  were  an  Apollo  for  His  sake  !  vStrange  idea,  yet  it  seemg 
so  harmonious  to  me  !  ...  Is  it  not  an  awful  proof  that  mat- 
ter is  not  necessarily  evil,  that  we  shall  be  clothed  in  bodies  even 
in  our  perfect  state  ?  Think  of  that !  ...  It  seems  all  so 
harmonious  to  me.  It  is  all  so  full  of  God,  that  I  see  no  inconsis- 
tency in  making  my  sermons  while  I  am  cutting  wood,  and  no 
'bizarrerie'  in  talking  one  moment  to  one  man  about  the  points  of 
a  horse,  and  the  next  moment  to  another  about  the  mercy  of  God  to 
sinners.  I  try  to  catch  men  by  their  leading  ideas,  and  so  draw  them 
off  insensibly  to  my  leading  idea.  And  so  I  find — shall  I  tell  you  ? 
you  know  it  is  not  vanity,  but  the  wish  to  make  you  happy  in  the 
thought  that  God  is  really  permitting  me  to  do  His  work — I  find 
that  dissent  is  decreasing  ;  people  are  coming  to  church  who  nevei 
went  anywhere  before ;  that  I  am  loved  and  respected — or  rather 
that  God's  ministry,  which  has  been  here  deservedly  despised,  alas! 
is  beginning  to  be  respected  ;  and  above  all,  that  the  young  wild 
fellows  who  are  considered  as  hopeless  by  most  men,  because  most 
men  are  what  they  call  'spoony  Methodists,'  i.  e.,  effeminate  ascet- 
ics, dare  not  gainsay,  but  rather  look  up  to  a  man  who  they  see 
is  their  superior,  if  he  chose  to  exert  his  power  in  physical  as  well 
as  intellectual  skill. 

"  So  1  am  trying  to  become  (harmoniously  and  consistently)  all 
things  to  all  men,  and  I  thank  God  for  the  versatile  mind  He  has 
given  me.     But  I  am  becoming  egotistical." 

This  was  one  secret  of  his  influence  in  Eversley  :  he  could  swing 
a  flail  with  the  threshers  in  the  barn,  turn  his  swathe  with  the  mow- 
ers in  the  meadow,  pitch  hay  with  the  hay-makers  in  the  pasture. 
From  knowing  every  fox  earth  on  the  moor,  the  "  reedy  hover"  of 
tha  pike,  the  still  hole  where  the  chub  lay,  he  had  alwajs  a  word 
in  sympathy  for  the  himtsman  or  the  old  poacher.  With  the  far- 
mer he  discussed  the  rotation  of  crops,  and  with  the  laborer  the 
science  of  hedging  and  ditching.  And  yet  while  he  seemed  to  ask 
for  information,  he  unconsciously  gave  more  than  he  received. 

At  this  time  Mr.  Mau'ice's  "Kingdjm  of  Christ"  was  put  into 


62  Charles  Kings  ley. 

Ins  hands.  It  was  in  a  great  crisis  of  his  Hfe,  and  he  always  said 
that  he  owed  more  to  that  book  than  to  any  he  had  ever  read,  for 
by  it  his  views  were  cleared  and  his  faith  established. 

It  may  seem  strange  to  some  that  Carlyle's  works  should  have 
laid  the  foundation  to  which  Coleridge's  "  Aids ''  and  Maurice's 
works  were  the  superstructure  :  but  so  it  was.  The  friend  vv^ho 
gave  them  all  to  him  little  thought  that  Chevalier  Bunsen,  in  his 
"  Hyppolytus  "  at  a  later  period  would  strike  the  point  of  contact 
between  these  three  authors  which  explains  their  effect  on  Charles 
Kingsley's  mind. 

Circumstances  now  caused  a  long  break  in  this  correspondence, 
but  the  faith  and  patience  with  which  the  trial  was  met  may  be 
seen  in  these  parting  words,  or  perhaps  still  more  in  some  rules, 
intended  for  one  eye  only,  but  from  which  extracts  have  been 
made,  in  the  hope  they  may  help  others  who  have  the  same  thorny 
road  to  travel,  without  such  a  friend  and  guide. 

EVERSLEY,    AugJtst,    1842. 

"  .  .  .  Though  there  may  be  clouds  between  us  now,  yet 
they  are  safe  and  dry,  free  from  storm  and  rains — our  parted  state 
now  is  quiet  grey  weather,  under  which  all  tender  things  will  spring 
up  and  grow,  beneath  the  warm  damp  air,  till  they  are  ready  for 
the  next  burst  of  sunshine  to  hurry  them  into  blossom  and  fruit. 
Let  us  plant  and  rear  all  tender  thoughts,  knowing  surely  that 
those  who  sow  in  tears  shall  reap  in  joy.  ...  I  can  under- 
stand people's  losing  by  trusting  too  little  to  God,  but  I  cannot  un- 
derstand any  one's  losing  by  trusting  too  much  to  Him  !     .     .     .     ." 

"  There  are  two  ways  of  looking  at  every  occurrence — a  bright 
and  a  dark  side.  Two  modes  of  action — Which  is  most  worthy  ol 
a  rational  being,  a  Christian  and  a  friend  ?  It  is  absurd,  as  a 
rational  being,  to  torture  one's  self  unnecessarily.  It  is  inconsis- 
tent in  a  Christian  to  see  God's  wrath,  rather  than  His  mercy  in 

everything How  to  avoid  this  morbidity  of  mind — 

by  prayer.  •  Resist  the  devil  and  he  will  tiee  from  you.'  By  turn- 
ing your  mind  from  the  dark  view.  Never  begin  to  look  darkly  at 
1  subject,  without  checking  yourself  and  saying,  '  Is  there  not  a 
bright  side  to  this  ?  Has  not  God  promised  the  bright  side  to  me  ? 
Is  not  my  happiness  in  my  own  power  ?  Do  I  not  know  that  I  am 
ruining  my  mind  and  endangering  the  hajipiness  of  those  dear  to 
me — by  looking  at  the  wrong  side  ? '  Make  this  your  habit. 
Every  gift  of  God  is  good,  and  given  for  our  happiness  ;  and  wf. 
sin  if  we  abuse  it.  To  use  our  fancy  to  our  own  misery  is  to  abuse 
it  and  to  sin — the  realm  of  the  possible  was  given  to  man  to  hope, 


Parting  Words.  03 

and  not  to  fear  in If  (in  sorrow)  tlae  thoi  ght  strikes 

you  that  we  are  punished  for  our  sins — mourn  for  the^^i,  and  not  fox 
the  happiness  which  they  have  prevented.  Rather  thank  God  thu( 
He  has  stopped  us  in  time,  and  rememb&i  His  promises  of  restor- 
ing us  if  we  profit  by  his  chastisement. 

"  In  cases  of  love  to  God  and  working  to  His  glory  in  the  first 
and  second  intention  read  Taylor's  '  Holy  Living.'  But  eschew 
his  Popish  fallacy  about  duties  as  different  from  perfections.  Every 
step  in  love  and  to  God,  and  devotion  to  Him  is  a  duty !  That 
doctrine  was  invented  to  allow  mankind  to  exist,  while  a  few  self- 
conceited  shut  themselves  up  in  a  state  of  unnatural  celibacy  and 
morbid  excitement,  in  order  to  avoid  their  duty,  instead  of  doing 
it.  Avoid  the  Fathers,  after  Origen  (including  him),  on  this  ac- 
count— their  theories  are  not  universal     .... 

"...  We  may  think  too  much !  There  is  such  a  thing  as 
mystifying  one's  self!  Mystifying  one's  self  is  thinking  a  dozen 
thoughts  in  order  to  get  to  a  conclusion,  to  which  one  might  arrive 
by  thinking  one ;  getting  at  ideas  by  an  unnecessarily  subtle  and 
circuitous  path:  then,  because  one  has  been  through  many  steps, 
one  fancies  one  has  gone  deep.  This  is  one  form  of  want  of  sim- 
plicity. This  is  not  being  like  a  little  child,  any  more  than  analys- 
ing one's  own  feelings.  A  child  goes  straight  to  its  point,  and  it 
hardly  knows  why.  When  you  have  done  a  thing,  leave  it  alone. 
You  mystify  yourself  after  the  idea,  not  before.  Second  thoughts 
may  be  best  before  action — they  are  folly  after  action,  unless  we 
find  we  have  sinned.  The  consistent  Christian  should  have  no 
second  thoughts,  but  do  good  by  the  first  impulse.  How  few  at- 
tain to  this.  I  do  not  object  to  subtlety  of  thought :  but  it  is  dan- 
gerous for  one  who  has  no  scientific  guide  of  logic,  &c. 

"Aim  at  depth.  A  thought  is  deep  in  proportion  as  it  is  near 
God.  You  may  be  subtle,  and  only  perceive  a  trifling  property  of 
the  subject,  which  others  do  not.  To  be  deep,  you  must  see  the 
subject  in  its  relation  to  God — yourself — and  the  universe;  and 
the  more  harmonious  and  simple  it  seems,  the  nearer  God  and  the 
deeper  it  is.  All  the  deep  things  of  God  are  bright — for  God  is 
light.  The  religion  of  terror  is  the  most  superficial  of  all  religions. 
God's  arbitrary  will,  and  almighty  power,  may  seem  dark  by  them- 
selves, though  deep,  as  they  do  to  the  Calvinists ;  but  that  w 
because  tiiey  do  not  involve  His  moral  character.  Join  them  witn 
the  fact  that  He  is  a  God  of  mercy  as  well  as  justice;  remember 
that  His  essence  is  love  ; — and  the  thunder-cloud  will  blaze  with 
dewy  gold,  full  of  soft  rain,  and  pure  light ! 

*'  Again  :  remember  that  habit,  more  than  reason,  will  cure  one 
both  of  mystifying  subtlety  and  morbid  fear  ;  and  remember  that 
habits  are  a  series  of  individual  voluntary  actions,  continued  till 
they  become  involuntary.  One  would  not  wish  to  become  good 
by  habit,  as  the  Aristotle-loving  Tractarians  do ;  but  one  must  ac 


64  Charles  Kings  Ley. 

quire  tones  of  mind  by  habit,  in  cases  in  wliich  inlellectudl,  not 
moral  obliquity,  or  constitutional  ill-health  is  the  cause  of  failure. 

"Some  minds  are  too  'subjective.'  What  I  mean  is,  that  they 
may  devote  themselves  too  much  to  the  subject  of  self  and  man- 
kind.  Now  man  is  not  'the  noblest  study  of  man.'  (What  lies 
the  trashy  poets  of  Pope  and  Johnson's  age  tell,  which  are  taken 
as  gospel,  and  acted  upon,  because  the  idol  said  so  !)  God  is  the 
noblest  study  of  man.  He  is  the  only  study  fit  for  a  woman  de- 
voted to  Him.     And  Him  you  can  study  in  three  ways. 

"  I  St.  From  His  dealings  in  History.  This  is  the  real  Philosophy 
of  History.  Read  Arnold's  'Lectures  on  Modern  History.'  (Oh  ! 
why  did  that  noblest  of  men  die  ?  God  have  mercy  upon  England  ! 
He  takes  the  shining  lights  from  us,  for  our  National  sins  !)  And 
read  as  he  tells  us  to  read,  not  to  study  man  a  la  Rochefoucauld, 
but  God  a  la  David  ! 

"  2nd.  From  His  image  as  developed  in  Christ  the  ideal,  and  in  ali 
good  men — great  good  men — David,  Moses,  St.  Paul,  Hooker,'  the 
four  Oxford  martyrs,  Luther,  Taylor,  Howard.  Read  about  that 
glorious  Luther  !  and  like  him  strive  all  your  life  to  free  men  from 
the  bondage  of  custom  and  self,  the  two  great  elements  of  the 
world  that  heth  in  wickedness  !  Read  Maurice  for  this  purpose, 
and  Carlyle. 

"3rd.  From  His  works.  Study  nature — not  scientifically — that 
would  take  eternity,  to  do  it  so  as  to  reap  much  moral  good  from 
it.  Superficial  physical  science  is  the  devil's  spade,  with  which  he 
loosens  the  roots  of  the  trees  prepared  for  the  burning !  Do  not 
study  matter  for  its  own  sake,  but  as  the  countenance  of  God ! 
Try  to  extract  every  line  of  beauty,  every  association,  every  moral 
reflection,  every  inexpressible  feeling  from  it.  Study  the  forms 
and  colors  of  leaves  and  flowers,  and  the  growth  and  habits  of 
l)lants ;  not  to  classify  them,  but  to  admire  them  and  adore  God. 
Study  the  sky !  Study  water !  Study  trees  !  Study  the  sounds 
and  scents  of  nature !  Study  all  these,  as  beautiful  in  themselves, 
in  order  to  re-combine  the  elements  of  beauty;  next,  as  allegories 
and  examples  from  whence  moral  reflections  may  be  drawn  ;  next, 
as  types  of  certain  tones  of  feeling,  &c. ;  but  remain  (yourself)  in 
Goil-dependence,  superior  to  them.  Learn  what  feelings  they  ex- 
press, but  do  not  let  them  mould  the  tone  of  your  mind ;  else  by 
allowing  a  melancholy  day  to  make  you  melancholy,  you  worship 
the  creature  more  than  the  Creator.  No  sight  but  has  some  beauty 
and  harmony  ! 

"Read  geology — Buckland's  '  Bridgewater  Treatise'  and  you 
will  rise  up  awe-struck  and  cling  to  God  ! 

"  Study  the  human  figure,  both  as  intrinsically  beautiful  and  a« 
expressing  mind.  It  only  expresses  the  broad  natural  childish 
emotions,  which  are  just  what  you  want  to  return  to.  Study  '  naturaJ 
language' — I  mean  the  'language  of  attitude.'     It  is  an  inexhaust 


Parting  Words.  65 

ible  source  of  knowledge  and  delight,  and  enables  one  human  being 
to  understand  another  so  perfectly.  Draw, — learn  to  draw  and 
paint  figures.  No  one  with  such  freedom  of  touch  in  landscape 
and  ])erception  of  physical  beauty  requires  anything  but  ?  few  sim- 
ple rules  and  some  common  attention  to  attitudes,  to  diaw  ex- 
quisitely. If  you  can  conunand  your  hand  in  drawing  a  tree,  you 
can  in  drawing  a  face.  Perfect  your  coloring  ....  It  will  keep 
your  mind  employed  on  objective  studies,  and  save  you  from  morbid 
introversion  of  mind — brooding  over  fallen  man.  It  will  increase 
your  perception  of  beauty,  and  thereby  your  own  harmony  of  soul 
and  love  to  God  ! 

"Practise  music — I  am  going  to  learn  myself,  merely  to  be  able 
to  look  after  my  singers  ....  Music  is  such  a  vent  for  the 
feelings 

"Study  medicine  ....  I  am  studying  it  ....  Make 
yourself  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  wages,  wants,  and  habits, 
and  prevalent  diseases  of  the  poor,  wherever  you  go. 

"Let  your  mind  freely  forth.  Only  turn  it  inwards  at  prayer 
time,  to  recollect  sins  of  which  you  were  conscious  at  the  time, 
not  to  look  for  fresh  ones.  They  are  provided  against  by  prayei 
for  pardon  of  unintentional  sins.  What  wisdom  in  our  Church ! 
She  knew  that  if  she  allowed  sin  hunting,  people  would  fancy,  like 
some  Dissenters,  that  pretending  everything  they  had  done  was  snv- 
ful,  was  a  sign  of  holiness  ! 

"Let  your  studies,  then,  be  objective  entirely.  Look  forwaid 
to  the  future  with  hope.  Build  castles,  if  you  will,  but  only  bright 
ones,  and  not  too  many — better  to  live  in  the  Past.  We  cannot 
help  thanking  God  for  that !  Blessed  Past  !  Has  not  God  led  us 
Uke  sheep  through  the  desert  ?     Think  of  all  He  has  done  for  us. 

.     .     .     Be  happy Weep,  but  let  them  be  tears  of 

'hankfulness. 

"Do  not  be  too  solicitous  to  find  deep  meanings  in  men's 
words.  Most  men  do,  and  all  men  ought  to  mean  only  what  is 
evident  at  first  sight  on  their  books  (unless  they  be  inspired  or 
write  for  a  private  eye).  This  is  the  great  danger  of  such  men  as 
Novalis,  that  you  never  know  how  much  he  means.  Beware  of 
subtlety  again.  The  quantity  of  sounding  nonsense  in  the  world 
is  incredible  !  If  you  wish  to  be  like  a  little  child,  study  what  a 
little  child  could  understand — nature  ;  and  do  what  a  little  child 
could  do — love. 

"  Use  your  senses  much,  and  your  mind  little.  Feed  on  Nature, 
and  do  not  try  to  understand  it.  It  wilU  digest  itself.  It  did  so 
when  you  were  a  baby  the  first  time  !  Look  round  you  much. 
Think  little  and  read  less  !     Never  give  way  to  reveries.     Have 

always  some  employment  in  your  hands When  you 

are  doing  nothing  at  night,  pray  and  praise  ! 

"  See  how  much  a  day  can  do  !  I  have  since  nine  this  morning 
5 


66  Charles  Kingsley, 

cut  wood  for  an  hour;  spent  an  hour  and  more  in  prayer  and 
humihation,  and  thereby  established  a  chastened  but  happy  tone, 
which  lasts  till  now ;  written  six  or  seven  pages  of  a  difficult  part 
of  my  essay  ;  taught  in  the  school  ;  thought  over  many  things 
while  walking ;  gone  round  two-thirds  of  the  parish  visiting  and 
doctoring ;  and  written  all  this.  Such  days  are  lives — and  hai)py 
ones.  One  has  no  time  to  be  miserable,  and  one  is  ashamed  to 
invent  little  sorrows  for  one's  self  while  one  is  trying  to  relieve 
such  grief  in  others  as  would  kill  us,  if  we  gave  way  or  fancied 
about  them  ! 

"  Pray  over  every  truth,  for  though  the  renewed  heart  is  not 
*  desperately  wicked,'  it  is  quite  '  deceitful '  enough  to  become  so, 
if  God  be  forgotten  a  moment  !     .     .     . 

"Keep  a  common-place  book,  and  put  into  it,  not  only  facts 
and  thoughts,  but  observations  on  form,  and  color,  and  nature, 
and  little  sketches,  even  to  the  form  of  beautiful  leaves.  They 
will  all  have  their  charm,  all  do  their  work  in  consolidating  your 
ideas.  Put  everything  into  it.  .  .  .  Strive  to  put  every  idea 
into  a  tangible  form,  and  write  it  down.  Distrust  every  idea  which 
you  cannot  put  into  words  ;  or  rather  distrust  your  ovn  conception 
of  it.  Not  so  with  feelings.  Therefore  write  much.  Try  to  put 
everything  in  its  place  in  the  great  syitem  .  .  .  seeing  tba 
realities  of  Heaven  and  Earth." 


CHAPTER  V. 

1842 — 1843. 
Aged  23-24. 

Curate    Life— Letter    from    Colonel  W.— Brighter    Piospects— Corresp  Jndeae* 
Renewed — P  omise  of  Preferment — Leaves  Eversley, 

A  YEAR  passed  by  of  silence  and  self-discipline,  hard  reading  and 
palish  duties.  That  sorrow  was  doing  its  work,  his  own  words  to 
Uis  parents  will  testify. 

"  .  .  .  Christianity  heightens  as  well  as  deepens  the  human  as 
well  as  the  divine  affections.    1  am  happy,  for  the  less  hope,  the  more 

faith God  knows  what  is  best  for  us,  and  very  lucky 

that  He  does,  for  I  am  sure  we  do  not.  Continual  resignation,  al 
last  I  begin  to  find,  is  the  secret  of  continual  strength.  '  Daily 
dying;'  as  Behmen  interprets  it,  is  the  path  of  daily  living.    .    .    ." 

His  mother  now  paid  him  a  visit,  and  she  gives  this  account  of 
his  surroundings : — 

Eversley,  1842. 

*'  Here  I  am,  in  a  humble  cottage  in  the  corner  of  a  sunny 
green,  a  little  garden,  whose  flower-beds  are  surrounded  with  tall 
and  aged  box,  is  fenced  in  from  the  path  with  a  low  white  paling. 
The  green  is  gay  with  dogs,  and  pigs,  and  geese,  some  running 
frolic  races,  and  others  swimming  in  triumph  in  a  glassy  pond,  where 
they  are  safe  from  all  intruders.  Every  object  around  is  either 
picturesque  or  happy,  fulfilling  in  their  different  natures  the  end  o( 

their  creation Surely  it  must  have  been  the  especial 

providence  of  God  that  directed  us  to  this  place  !  and  the  thought 
of  this  brightens  every  trial.  There  is  independence  in  every  good 
sense  of  the  word,  and  yet  no  loneliness.  The  family  at  the  Brewery 
are  devoted  to  Charles,  and  think  they  cannot  do  enough  for  him. 
The  dear  old  man  says  he  has  been  praying  for  years  for  such  a 
time  to  come,  and  that  Eversley  has  not  been  so  blessed  for  sixty 
years.  Need  I  say  rejoice  with  me.  Here  I  sit  surrounded  by 
your  books  and  little  things  which  speak  of  you." 

To  his  college  friend,  Peter  A.  L.  H.  Wood,  Esq.  (now  Rectw 
of  Copford.  Essex),  he  writes  to  beg  for  a  visit  in  his  solitude. 


68  Charles  Kings  ley. 

"Peter!  Eversley,  August  5,  184?. 

"  Whether  in  the  glarirg  saloons  of  Ahiiack's,  or  making  love 
in  the  equestrian  stateliness  of  the  park,  or  the  luxurious  recum- 
bency of  the  ottoman,  whether  breakfasting  at  one,  or  going  to  bed 
at  three,  thou  art  still  Peter,  the  beloved  of  my  youth,  the  staff  of 
my  academic  days,  the  regret  of  my  parochial  retirement ! — Peter  I 
I  am  alone  !  Around  me  are  the  everlasting  hills,  and  the  ever 
lasting  bores  of  the  country  !  My  parish  is  peculiar  for  nothing 
but  want  of  houses  and  abundance  of  peat  bogs  ;  my  parishioners 
remarkable  onily  for  aversion  to  education,  and  a  predilection  for 
fat  bacon.  I  am  wasting  my  sweetness  on  the  desert  air — I  sa}  my 
sweetness,  for  I  have  given  up  smoking,  and  smell  no  more.  Oh, 
Peter,  Peter,  come  down  and  see  me  !  Oh  that  I  could  behold 
your  head  towering  above  the  fir-trees  that  surround  my  lonely 
dwelling.  Take  pity  on  me  !  I  am  '  like  a  kitten  in  the  washhouse 
copper  with  the  lid  on  ! '  And,  Peter,  prevail  on  some  of  your  friends 
here  to  give  me  a  day's  trout-fishing,  for  my  hand  is  getting  out  of 
practice.  But,  Peter,  I  am,  considering  the  oscillations  and  perplex 
circumgurgitations  of  this  piece-meal  world,  an  improved  man.  1 
am  much  more  happy,  much  more  comfortable,  reading,  thinking, 
and  doing  my  duty — much  more  than  ever  I  did  before  in  m}'  life. 
Therefore  \  am  not  discontented  with  my  situation,  or  regretful 
that  I  buried  my  first-class  in  a  country  curacy,  like  the  girl  who 
shut  herself  up  in  a  band-box  on  her  wedding  night  {I'ide  Rogers's 
'Italy.')  And  my  lamentations  are  not  general  (for  I  do  not  want 
an  inundation  of  the  froth  and  tide-wash  of  Babylon  the  Great),  but 
particular,  being  solely  excited  by  want  of  thee,  oh  Peter,  who  art 
very  pleasant  to  me,  and  wouldst  be  more  so  if  thou  wouldst 
come  and  eat  my  mutton,  and  drink  my  wine,  and  admire  my 
sermons,  some  Sunday  at  Eversley. 

"  Your  faithful  friend, 

"  Boanerges  Roar-at-the-Clods." 

His  friend  responded  to  the  call.     "  I  paid  him  a  visit,"  he  says, 
"  at  Eversley,  where  he  lived  in  a  thatched  cottage.     So  roughly  was 
he  lodged  that  I  recollect  taking  him  some  game,  which  was  dried, 
to  a  cinder  in  the  cooking  and  quite  spoiled  \  but  he  was  as  happy 
as  if  he  were  in  a  palace.     .     .     ." 

And  now  the  young  curate,  who  had  gained  the  love  and  respect 
of  the  parish,  was  rewarded  by  brigher  prospects.  He  had  little 
society,  during  his  first  year  of  curate  life,  except  in  the  parish  and 
at  Sandhurst,  where  he  had  one  or  two  friends  in  the  Senior  de- 
partment of  the  Military  College.  One  of  these  friends  tlms  de 
scribes  their  intercourse  at  this  time  : — 


Brighter  Days.  69 

FROM    COLONEL   W. 

"  My  memory  often  runs  back  to  the  days  at  Sandhurst,  wher  1 
used  to  meet  dear  Kingsley  continually  in  his  little  curate  roc-  is, 
at  the  corner  of  the  Green  at  Eversley ;  when  he  told  me  of  .jia 
attachment  to  one  whom  he  feared  he  should  never  be  able  'c 
marry,  and  that  he  supposed  that  he  should  live  the  rest  of  his  lire' 
reading  old  books,  and  knocking  his  head  against  the  ceiling  of  his 
room,  like  a  caged  bird.  And  well  I  remen:.ber  a  particular  Sun- 
day, when  walking  with  him  to  his  church  in  the  afternoon,  having 
dined  with  him  at  mid-day.  It  was  a  lovely  afternoon  in  the  au- 
tumn— passing  through  the  corn  in  sheaf,  the  bells  ringing,  and 
people,  young  and  old,  gathering  together  near  the  church.  He, 
looking  down  on  the  Rectory  house,  said  to  me 

"  '  Oh  !  how  hard  it  is  to  go  through  life  without  wishing  for  the 
goods  of  others  !  Look  at  the  Rectory  !  Oh,  if  I  were  there  with 
a  wife,  how  happy,'  &c.  God  seemed  to  hear  the  desire  of  his 
creature,  for  when  the  next  year's  corn  was  in  sheaf,  you  were  with 
him  at  the  Rectory.  And  he  has  told  me  in  after  years  that  his  lift 
with  you  was  one  of  constantly  increasing  love.  I  called  at  hii 
cottage  one  morning,  and  I  found  him  almost  beside  himself,  stamp- 
ing his  things  into  a  portmanteau.  '  What  is  the  matter,  dear 
Kingsley  ? ' — '  1  am  engaged.  1  am  going  to  see  her  Jioiv — to-day.^ 
I  was  so  glad,  and  left  him  to  his  joy. 

"  My  tears  v/ill  come  to  my  eyes  in  writing  these  lines,  for  I 
loved  Kingsley  as  well  as  man  can  love  man.  I  have  only  one  lit- 
tle scratch  of  a  drawing  of  his.  I  have  many  pleasant  reminiscen- 
ces, sparks  of  his  large  mind,  as  in  friendly  chat  we  would  sit  and 
draw  together,  or  walk  by  river  side  and  think  of  Nature, — and  all 
one's  strongest  desires, — for  a  heart  to  share  every  thought  and 
sight.     And  now  this  picture  in  life  is  over " 

In  September,  1843,  through  the  kindness  of  Lord  Sidney  Os 
borne,  a  relation  of  his  future  wife.  Lord  Portman  promised  to  give 
Charles  Kingsley  one  of  the  first  small  livings  that  fell  to  his  gift, 
and  in  the  mean  time  advised  him  to  apply  for  the  curacy  of  Pim- 
perne,  near  Blandford,  which  with  a  good  house  would  be  vacant 
in  the  following  spring.  This  being  secured,  Bishop  Sumner  gave 
perniissiop  for  his  resigning  the  curacy  of  Eversley  at  Christmas. 

The  correspondence,  whicli  had   dropped  for  a  year,  was  now 

resumed. 

Eversley  Cross,  October,  1843. 

*'  I  am  getting  very  strong,  and  have  been  threshing  wheat  a 
good  deal  these  last  two  wet  days,  which  is  splendid  exercise.  I 
look  forward  to  working  in  the  garden  at  Pimperne.  What  a  place 
V)r  summer  nights  !     We  will  go  and  sit  in  the  church  sometimes 


70  Charles  Kings  ley. 

on  summer  r.ights,  too  ....  but  I  am  not  fond,  you  know, 
of  going  into  churches  to  pray.  We  must  go  up  into  the  chase  in 
the  evenings,  and  pray  there  with  nothing  but  God's  cloud  temple 
between  us  and  His  heaven  !  And  His  choir  of  small  birds  and 
night  crickets  and  booming  beetles,  and  all  happy  things  who 
praise  Him  all  night  long !  And  in  the  still  summer  noon,  too, 
with  the  lazy-paced  clouds  above,  and  the  distant  sheep-bell,  and 
the  bee  humming  in  the  beds  of  thyme,  and  one  bird  making  the 
hollies  ring  a  moment,  and  then  all  still — hushed — awe-bound,  ag 
the  great  thunderclou(Js  slide  up  from  the  far  south  !  Then,  there 
to  praise  God  !  Ay,  even  when  the  heaven  is  black  with  wind,  the 
thunder  crackling  over  our  heads,  then  to  join  in  the  pc'ean  of  the 
storm-spirits  to  Him  whose  pageant  of  power  passes  over  the  earth 
and  harms  us  not  in  its  mercy! 

**  I  once  scandalized  a  man  who  had  been  sentimentalising  about 
Gothic  aisles,  by  telling  him  that  all  agreed  that  they  were  built  in 
imitation  of  the  glades  of  forest  trees,  with  branches  interlacing 
overhead  !  and  that  I  liked  God's  work  better  than  man's  !  In  the 
Cathedral,  we  worship  alone  and  the  place  is  dumb,  or  speaks  only 
to  us,  raising  a  semi-selfish  emotion  ;  that  is,  having  its  beginning 
and  end  in  us.  In  the  forest,  every  branch  and  leaf,  with  the  thou- 
sand living  things  which  cluster  on  them,  all  worship  with  us ! " 

EVERSLEY,  November^  1 843. 

"  .  .  .  As  to  self-improvement,  tlie  true  Catholic  mode  of 
learning  is,  to  '  prove  all  things,'  as  far  as  we  can  without  sin  or 
the  danger  of  it,  and  'hold  fast  that  which  is  good.'  Let  us  never 
be  afraid  of  trying  anything,  though  copied  from  people  of  different 
opinions  to  our  own.  And  let  us  never,  never  be  afraid  of  changing 
our  opinions — not  our  knowledge.  If  we  should  find  fasting  unsuc- 
cessful, we  will  simply  give  it  up — and  so  on  with  all  practices  and 
opinions  not  expressed  in  Scripture.  That  is  a  form  of  pride 
which  haunts  the  more  powerful  minds,  the  unwillingness  to  go 
back  from  one's  declared  opinion,  but  it  is  not  found  in  great  child- 
like geniuses.  Fools  may  hold  fast  to  their  scanty  stock  through 
life,  and  we  must  be  very  cautious  in  drawing  them  from  it — for 
where  can  they  supply  its  place  ?  Therefore,  there  is  no  more 
unloving,  heartless  man-murderer,  than  the  man  who  goes  about 
trying,  for  the  display  of  his  own  'talents'  (a  word  I  dislike),  to 
shake  people  in  their  belief,  even  when  that  belief  is  not  quite 
sound.  Better  believe  in  ghosts  'with  no  heads  and  jackboot.^ 
on,'  like  my  Eversley  i)eople,  than  believe  in  nothing  but  self  1 
Therefore  Maurice's  loving.  Christian  rule  is,  'Never  taite  away 
from  a  man  even  the  shadow  of  a  spiritual  truth,  unless  you  can 
give  him  substance  in  return.'  Therefore,  let  those  less  educated 
or  less  holy  minds,  whc  have  found  some  truth,  hold  it  in  peacj — 


Waitdering  MinsUsls.  •j\ 

not  tear  up  all  their  belief  along  with  their  prejudices,  tares  and 
wheat  together,  as  the  Tractarians  are  doing  to  the  poor  of  England 
now  !  But  those  who  discover  much  truth — ay,  who  make  perhaps 
only  one  truth  really  their  own,  a  living  integral  law  of  their  spirits 
— must,  in  developing  it,  pass  through  many  changes  of  0[)iniou. 
They  must  rise  and  fall  back,  and  rise  higher  again,  and  fiill  and 
vise  again,  till  they  reach  the  level  table-land  of  truth,  and  can  look 
down  on  men  toiling  and  stumbling  in  the  misty  valleys,  where  the 
rising  sunlight  has  not  yet  found  its  way.  Or  perhaps,  their  own 
minds  will  oscillate,  like  a  pendulum,  between  Dualism  and  Uni- 
tarianism,  or  High  Church  and  Low  Church,  until  the  oscillations 
become  gradually  smaller,  and  subside  into  the  Rest  of  Truth  !— 
the  peace  which  passes  understanding !  I  fancy  it  is  a  law,  that 
the  greater  the  mind,  the  stronger  the  heart,  the  larger  will  the 
oscillations  be,  but  the  less  they  will  be  visible  to  the  world,  be- 
cause the  wise  man  will  not  act  outwardly  upon  his  opinions  until 
they  have  become  knowledge,  and  his  mind  is  in  a  state  of  rest. 
This  I  think  the  true,  the  only  doctrine  of  Reserve — reserve  of  our 
own  fancies,  not  of  immutable  truth. 

" .  .  .  People  smile  at  the  *  enthusiasm  of  youth  ' — that 
enthusiasm  which  they  themselves  secretly  look  back  at  with  a 
sigh,  perhaps  unconscious  that  it  is  partly  their  own  fault  that  they 
ever  lost  it.  Is  it  not  strange,  that  the  only  persons  who  appeal 
to  me  to  carry  to  the  grave  with  them  the  joyousness,  simplicity, 
and  lovingness  and  trust  of  children,  are  the  most  exalted  Chris- 
tians ?  Think  of  St.  John,  carried  into  the  Church  at  Smyrna,  at 
the  age  of  ninety-nine,  and  with  his  dying  breath  repeating  the 
same  simple  words,  'Little  children,  love  one  another.'  " 


EVERSLEY,  October  27. 

*' .  .  .  I  have  been  making  a  fool  of  myself  for  the  last  ten 
minutes,  according  to  the  world's  notion  of  folly,  for  there  have 
been  some  strolling  fiddlers  under  the  window,  and  I  have  been 
listening  and  crying  like  a  child.  Some  quick  music  is  so  inex- 
])ressibly  mournful.  It  seems  just  like  one's  own  feelings — exulta- 
tion and  action,  with  the  ren^embrance  of  past  sorrow  wailing  up, 
yet  without  bitterness,  tender  in  its  shrillness,  through  the  mingled 
tide  of  present  joy  ;  and  the  notes  seem  thoughts — thoughts  pure 
of  words,  and  a  spirit  seems  to  call  to  me  in  them  and  cry,  '  Hast 
thou  not  felt  all  this  ?'  And  I  start  when  I  find  myself  ?,nswering 
unconsciously,  '  Yes,  yes,  I  know  it  all ! '  Surely  we  are  a  part  of 
all  we  see  and  hear!'  And  then  the  harmony  thickens,  and  all 
distinct  sound  is  pressed  together  and  absorbed  in  a  confused 
paroxysm  of  delight,  where  still  the  female  treble  and  the  male 
bas2  are  distinct  for  a  moment,  and  then  one  again — absorbed 
into  each  other's   being — sweetened    and    strengthened   by    each 


J  2  Charles  Kings  ley. 

other's  melody     .     .     .     c     why  should  I  not  cry  ?     Those  men 

have  unconsciously  told  me  my  own  tale  !  why  should  1  not  Icvre 
them  and  pray  for  them  ?  Are  they  not  my  benefactors  ?  Have 
they  not  given  me  more  than  food  and  drink  ?  Let  us  never  de- 
spise the  wandering  minstrel.  He  is  an  unconscious  witness  fo? 
God's  harmony — a  preacher  of  the  world-music — the  power  of 
sweet  sounds,  wiiich  is  a  link  between  every  age  and  race — the 
language  which  all  can  understand,  though  few  can  speak.  And 
who  knows  what  tender  thoughts  his  own  sweet  music  stirs  within 
him,  though  he  eat  in  pot-houses,  and  sleep  in  barns !  Ay, 
thoughts  too  deep  for  words  are  in  those  simple  notes — wh) 
should  not  v/e  feel  them  ?...." 

EvERSLEV,  October,  1843. 

"  .  .  .  I  have  been  thinking  of  how  we  are  to  order  our  estab- 
lishment at  Pimperne.  The  best  way  will  be,  while  we  are  in  Somer- 
setshire (a  season  of  solemn  and  delightful  preparation  for  our  work 
we  will  hunt  out  all  the  texts  in  the  Bible  about  masters  and  ser- 
vants, to  form  rules  upon  them  ;  and  our  rules  we  will  alter  anc 
improve  upon  in  time,  as  we  find  out  more  and  more  of  the  true 
relation  in  which  we  ought  to  stand  to  those  whom  God  has  placed 

under  us I  feel  more  and  more  that  the  new  principle 

of  considering  a  servant  as  a  trader,  wlio  sells  you  a  certain  amount 
of  work  for  a  certain  sum  of  money,  is  a  devil's  principle,  and  that 
we  must  have  none  of  it,  but  return  as  far  as  we  can  to  the  patri- 
archial  and  feudal  spirit  towards  them * 

"...  And  religion,  that  is,  truth,  shall  be  the  only  thing  in  our 
house.  All  things  must  be  made  to  tend  to  it ;  and  if  they  cannot 
be  made  to  tend  to  God's  glory,  the  belief  in,  and  knowledge  of  the 
spiritual  world,  and  the  duties  and  ties  of  humanity,  they  must  be 
turned  out  of  doors  as  part  of  '  the  world.'  One  thing  we  must 
keep  up,  if  we  intend  to  be  anything  like  witnesses  for  God,  in 
peihaps  the  most  sensual  generation  since  Alaric  destroyed  Rome, 
— I  mean  the  continual  open  verbal  reference  of  everytJving,  even 
to  the  breaking  of  a  plate,  to  God  and  God's  providence,  as  the 
Easterns  do.  The  reason  why  God's  name  is  so  seldom  in  people's 
mouths  is  not  that  they  reverence  Him,  as  they  sa}',  too  much  to 
talk  of  Him  {!  !  !),  but  because  they  do  not  think  of  him  ! 

"  About  our  Parish.  No  clergyman  knows  less  about  the  working 
of  a  parish  than  I  do  ;  but  one  thing  I  do  know,  that  I  have  to 
preach  Jesus  Christ  and  Him  crucified,  and  to  be  instant  in  that,  in 

season  and  out  of  season  and  at  all  risks And  therefore 

I  pray  dail)  for  the  Spirit  of  love  to  guide  us,  and  the  Spirit  of 

*  He  carried  out  this  principle  in  daily  life,  and  at  his  death  all  the  servant* 
in  his  hov^e  had  lived  with  him  from  seventeen  to  tiventy-six  years,  and  mad 
of  tho«e  who  had  left  the  rectory,  left  to  go  to  a  ho  he  of  their  oh'u. 


Order  in  daily  Work.  73 

earnestness  to  keej')  us  at  work.  For  our  work  must  be  done  by 
praying  for  ou'  peo])le,  by  preaching  to  them,  in  church  and  out  of 
church  (for  all  instruction  is  preaching — vide  Hooker — by  leading 
them  to  pray  and  worship  in  the  liturgy,  and  by  setting  them  an  ex- 
ample ; — an  example  in  every  look,  word,  and  motion, — in  the  pay- 
ing of  a  bill,  the  hinng  of  a  servant,  the  reproving  of  a  child. 

"  We  will  have  no  innovations  in  ceremony.  But  we  will  not  let 
public  worship  become  'dead  bones.'  We  will  strive  and  pray,  day 
and  night,  till  we  put  life  into  it,  till  our  parish  feels  that  God  is  the 
great  Idea,  and  that  all  things  are  in  Him,  and  He  in  all  things. 
The  local  means,  to  which  so  much  importance  is  attached  now-a- 
days,  by  those  very  sects  who  pretend  to  despise  outward  ir;slru- 
nients,  I  mean  the  schools,  charities,  &c.,  I  know  nothing  of,  in 
Pimperne.  But  we  must  attend  to  them  (not  alter  them),  and  make 
them  tools  for  our  work,  which  is  to  teach  men  that  there  is  a  God, 
and  that  nothing  clone  without  Him  is  done  at  all,  but  a  mere  sham 
and  makeshift.  We  must  attend  the  schools  and  superintend  the 
teaching,  going  round  to  the  different  classes,  and  not  hearing  them 
the  letter,  but  tryingby  a  few  seasonable  words  to  awaken  them  to  the 
spirit  ;  this  is  the  distinction  which  is  so  neglected  between  the  duty 
of  the  parson  and  his  wife,  and  that  of  the  schoolmaster  and  mis- 
tress  The  Church  Catechism  must  be  the  main  point  of 

instruction.  Of  the  Bible,  the  Proverbs  and  the  Gospels,  with  parts 
picked  frem  the  leading  points  of  Old  Testament  history,  are  all 
Ihey  need  know.  They  will  soon  learn  the  rest,  if  they  can  master 
the  real  meaning  and  spirit  of  Solomon  and  St.  John.  Few  hav(i 
(lone  that,  and  therefore  the  Bible  is  a  sealed  book  to  the  very  people 
who  swear  by  it,  /.  e.,  by  some  twenty  texts  in  it  which  lay  down 
their  favorite  doctrines  plainly  enough  to  be  patched  into  a  system, 
and  those  not  understood  skin  deep.  Fet  us  observe  the  Ember 
tlays,  .  .  praying  over  the  sins  of  the  clergy,  one's  own  especial- 
ly. .  .  .  entreating  God's  mercy  on  the  country,  as  children  of 
a  land  fast  hurrying  to  ruin  in  her  mad  love  of  intellectuality,  mam- 
monism,  and  false  liberty  !  and  to  avert  some  portion  of  the  coming 

evil  from  Church  and  nation 1  see  the  dawn  of  better 

knowledge.  Puseyism  is  a  struggle  after  it.  It  has  failed — already 
failed,  because  unsound  ;  but  the  answer  which  it  found  in  ten 
thousand  hearts  shows  that  men  are  yearning  for  better  things  than 
money,  or  dogmas,  and  that  God's  Spirit  has  not  left  us.  Maurice 
is  a  struggle  after  it — Thomas  Carlyle  is  a  struggle— This  book  of 
Bosanquet's  (*  The  Perils  of  the  Nation  ')  is  a  struggle — All  more  or 
less  sound,  towards  true  Christianity,  and  therefore  true  national 
prosperity.   But  will  they  hear  the  voices  which  warn  them  ?  .  .   .   . 

"  But  now  I  must  bid  good- night,  and  read  my  psalms  and  kssons 
and  pray.     .     .     .     ." 


CHAPTER  VI 

1844 — 1847. 

Aged  25-28. 

Marriage — Ci.racy  of  Pimpeme — Rectory  of  Eversley — Ccnespondenee. 

Early  in  1844  Charles  Kingsley  was  married  to  Fanny,  daughtei 
of  Pascoe  Grenfell  and  Georgiana  St.  Leger  his  wife.  He  had 
settled  to  take  possession  of  the  curacy  of  Piniperne,  in  Dorset- 
shire, in  the  following  spring,  but  the  living  of  Eversley  falling 
vacant  at  that  time,  a  strong  effort  was  made  by  the  parishioners 
to  get  the  curate  who  had  worked  among  them  so  indefatigably 
appointed  rector.  While  the  matter  was  pending,  he  went  down 
into  Dorsetshire  for  a  few  weeks  alone  to  do  the  duty,  staying 
either  at  Durweston  Rectory  or  at  Blandford,  during  which  inter- 
val the  following  letters  were  written  : — 

Salisbury,  March  31,  1844. 

*'.  .  .  I  spent  a  delightful  day  yesterday.  Conceive  mj 
pleasure  at  finding  myself  in  Bemerton,  George  Herbert's  parish, 
and  seeing  his  house  and  church,  and  fishing  in  the  very  meadows 
where  he,  and  Dr.  Donne,  and  Izaak  Walton,  may  have  fished  be- 
fore me.  I  killed  several  trout  and  a  brace  of  grayling,  about 
three-quarters  of  a  pound  each — a  fish  quite  new  to  me,  smelling 
just  like  cucumbers.  The  dazzling  chalk-wolds  sleeping  in  the 
sun,  the  clear  river  rushing  and  boiling  down  in  one  ever- sliding 
sheet  of  transparent  silver,  the  birds  bursting  into  song,  and  mating 
and  toying  in  every  hedge-row — everything  stirred  with  the  gleam 
of  God's  eyes,  when  '  He  reneweth  the  face  of  the  earth  ! '  I  had 
many  happy  thoughts  ;  but  I  am  very  lonely.  No  time  for  more, 
as  I  am  going  to  prayers  in  the  cathedral." 

Durweston  Rectory,  April  i,  1S44. 

"I  looked  intQ  and  read  much  of  *  Henry  Martyn's  Life'  (East 
Indian  missionary)  last  night.  My  mind  is  in  a  chaos  about  him. 
Sometimes  one  feels  inclined  to  take  him  at  his  own  word,  and 
believe  liim,   as  he   says,   a  mere  hypochondriac:  then  the  next 


Carlyie  and   Wordsworth.  75 

moincit  he  seems  a  saint.     I  cannot  fathom  it.     Of  this  I  am  cer- 
tain, that  he  is  a  much  better  man  than  I  am." 

Blandford,  April  17,  1844. 

'*.  .  .  More  and  more  I  find  that  these*  writings  of  Carlyle's 
do  not  lead,  to  gloomy  discontent — that  theirs  is  not  a  dark  but  a 
bright  view  of  life  :  in  reahty,  more  evil  speaking  against  the  age 
and  its  inhabitants  is  thundered  from  the  pulpit  daily,  by  both 
Evangelical  and  Tractarian,  than  Carlyie  has  been  guilty  of  in  all 
his  works  ;  but  he  finds  fault  in  tangible  original  language — they 
speak  evil  of  every  one  except  their  own  party,  but  in  such  con- 
ventional language  that  no  ear  is  shocked  by  the  oft-repeated  for- 
mulae of  '  original  sin '  and  'unconverted  hearts,' and  so  on;  and 
the  man  who  would  be  furious  if  Carlyie  had  classed  him  among 
the  '  valets,^  bears  with  perfect  equanimity  the  information  of  Mr. 
B  *  *  *,  that  he  is  a  '  vessel  of  wrath,'  or  of  Dr.  p  *  *  *j  that  he  has 
put  himself  beyond  the  pale  of  Christ's  atonement  by  sin  after 
baptism.  Let  us  in  all  things  take  Dr.  Johnson's  golden  rule  ; 
'  First  clear  your  mind  of  cant." 

PiMPERNE,  ^/W/21,   1844. 

**I  have  been  reading  Wordsworth's  'Excursion,'  with  many 
tears  and  prayers  too.  To  me  he  is  not  only  poet,  but  preacher 
and  prophet  of  God's  new  and  divine  philosophy — a  man  raised  as 
a  light  in  a  dark  time,  and  rewarded  by  an  honored  age,  for  the 
simple  faith  in  man  and  God  with  which  he  delivered  his  message  ; 
whose  real  nobility  is  independent  of  rank,  or  conventionalities  of 
language  or  manner,  which  is  but  the  fashion  of  this  world  and 
passes  away.  I  am  trying,  in  my  way,  to  do  good  ;  but  what  is 
the  use  of  talking  to  hungry  paupers  about  heaven  ?  '  Sir,'  as  my 
clerk  said  to  me  yesterday,  '  there  is  a  weight  upon  their  hearts, 
and  they  care  for  no  hope  and  no  change,  for  they  know  they  can 
be  no  worse  off  than  they  are.'  And  so  they  have  no  spirit  to 
arise  and  go  to  their  Father  !  Those  who  lounge  upon  down  beds, 
and  throw  away  thousands  at  Crockford's  and  Almack's — they,  the 
refined  of  this  earth,  have  crushed  it  out  of  them.  I  have  been 
very  sad  lately  seeing  this,  and  seeing,  too,  the  horrid  effects  ol 
that  new  Poor  Law.     You  must  be  behind  the  scenes  to  see  the 

truth,  in  places  which  the  Malthus's  and 'sknow  nothing 

of."     .... 

"  S.  G.  O.  is  deep  in  statistics  and  abuses.  Heaven  knows, 
■when  there  are  so  many  abuses,  we  ought  to  thank  a  man  who  wili 
hunt  them  out.  I  will  never  believe  that  a  man  has  a  real  love  for 
ttie  good  and  beautifiil,  except  he  attacks  the  evil  and  the  disgusting 
the  moment  he  sees  it  !     Therefore  you  must  make  up  ycur  mind 

*  "The  Miscellanies."  and  "Past  and  Present." 


y6  Charles  Kings  ley. 

to  see  me-,  with  God's  help,  a  hunter  out  of  abuses  till  the  abusei 
cease — only  till  then.  It  is  very  easy  to  turn  our  eyes  away  from 
ugly  sights,  and  so  consider  ourselves  refined.  The  refined  man  to 
me  is  he  who  cannot  rest  in  peace  with  a  coal-mine,  or  a  factory,  or 
a  Dorsetshire  peasant's  house  near  him,  in  the  state  in  which  they 
are I  am  deep  in  'The  Perils  of  the  Nation.'    .    .    .    .' 

Sunday  Night. 

"You  know,  I  suppose,  all  that  I  can  tell  you.  I  am  to  see  Sir 
John  Cope  at  Arthur's  Club  House,  to-morrow  afternoon,  and,  at 
a'll  events,  shall  return  to  you  Monday,  perhaps  Rector  of  Evers- 
ley  !  Forgive  this  short  letter,  as  I  am  worn  out ;  but  a  bright 
future  opens.     Blessed  be  God.     .     .     ." 

Monday. 

"All  is  settled  at  last.  Sir  John  has  given  me  the  living,  ana  is 
going  to  see  the  Bishop  to-day,  and  I  am  to  go  down  to  Eversley 
to-morrow.  He  wishes  me  to  settle  there  as  soon  as  possible. 
God  never  fails  those  who  put  their  trust  in  him " 

"  .  .  .  The  presentation  is  to  be  ready  in  a  few  days.  I  am 
then  to  be  instituted  here  in  town,  and  then,  please  God,  we  shall 
get  to  Eversley  on  Friday  or  Saturday.  The  packing,  van,  &c., 
and  some  little  comforts  before  we  take  possession,  I  have  settled. 
Congratulations,  as  you  may  suppose,  are  plentiful  .... 
and  1  had  the  pleasure  of  bringing  the  news  myself  to  Eversley. 
I  go  to  the  Bishop  of  Winchester  to-morrow.  J 
took  the  whole  duty  at  St.  George's  Hospital  yesterday  morning, 
and  preached  a  charity  sermon  at  St.  Luke's  in  the  afternoon,  and 
at   the   old   church  in   the  evening ;    and  am  very  tired,  body  and 

mind My  brain  has  been  in  such  a  whirl  that  1  have 

hatl  n6  time  for  deep  thoughts.  I  can  understand,  by  the  events 
of  the  last  few  days,  how  the  minds  of  men  of  business,  at  the 
veiy  moment  they  are  wielding  the  vastest  commercial  or  physical 
power,  may  yet  be  degraded  and  superficial.  One  seems  to  do  so 
much  in  '  business,'  and  yet  with  how  little  fruit :  we  bustle,  and 
God  works.  That  glorious,  silent  Providence — such  a  contrast  to 
J  hysical  power,  widi  its  blast  furnaces  and  roaring  steam  engines  1 

"  Farewell  till  to-morrow " 

He  now  settled  as  rector,  at  Eversley,  with  his  wife  ;  and  life 
flowed  on  peacefully,  notwithstanding  the  anxieties  of  a  sorely 
neglected  parish,  and  the  expenses  of  an  old  house  which  had  not 
been  repaired  for  more  than  a  hundred,  years.  Owing  to  the  cir- 
cimistances  under  whicli  the  living  fell  vacant,  the  irroming  tenani 
g' '.  no    Jilapidation-money,  and   had   arrears  of  Pcor   Rates   a;rl 


Settled  at  E  vers  ley.  y) 

the  pay  of  the  curate  to  meet.  The  house  itself  was  damp  and 
unwholesome,  surrounded  witl  ponds  which  overflowed  with  every 
heavy  rain,  and  flooded  not  only  the  garden  and  stables,  hut  all 
the  rooms  on  the  ground  floor,  keeping  up  master  and  servants 
sometimes  all  niglit,  bailing  out  the  water  in  buckets  for  hours 
together  ;  and  drainage  works  had  to  be  done  before  it  was  habi- 
table. From  these  causes,  and  from  the  charities  falling  almost 
entirely  on  the  incumbent,  the  living,  though  a  good  one,  was  for 
years  unremunerative  ;  but  the  young  rector,  happy  in  his  home 
and  his  work,  met  all  difficulties  bravely ;  and  gradually  in  the 
course  of  years,  the  land  was  drained  ;  the  ponds  which  ran  through 
the  garden  and  stood  above  the  level  of  the  dwelling  rooms  were 
filled  up,  and  though  the  house  was  never  healthy,  it  was  habitable. 

New  clubs  for  the  poor,  shoe  club,  coal  club,  maternal  society, 
a  loan  fund  and  lending  library,  were  established  one  after  another. 
An  intelligent  young  parishioner,  who  is  still  school-master,  was 
sent  by  the  rector  to  the  Winchester  Training  College  ;  an  adult 
school  was  held  in  the  rectory  tliree  nights  a  week  for  all  the  win- 
ter months  ;  a  Sunday  school  met  there  every  Sunday  morning  and 
afternoon  ;  and  weekly  cottage  lectures  were  established  in  all  the 
out-lying  districts  for  the  old  and  feeble.  The  fact  of  there  being 
no  school-house  had  a  good  effect  in  drawing  the  people  within  the 
humanizing  influences  of  the  rectory,  which  was  always  open  to 
them,  and  will  ever  be  associated  in  the  minds  of  young  and  old 
of  this  generation  at  Eversley,  with  the  kind  and  courteous  sym- 
pathy and  the  living  teaching  whicli  they  all  got  from  their  rector. 

At  the  beginning  of  his  ministry  there  was  not  a  grown  up  man 
or  woman  among  the  laboring  class  who  could  read  or  write — for 
as  boys  and  girls  they  had  all  been  glad  to  escape  early  to  field 
work  from  the  parish  clerk's  little  stifling  room,  ten  feet  square, 
where  cobbling  shoes,  teaching,  and  caning  went  on  together.  Ai 
to  religious  instruction,  they  had  had  none. 

The  church  was  nearly  empty  before  the  new  curate  came  in 
1842.  The  farmers'  sheep,  when  pasture  was  scarce,  were  turned 
into  the  neglected  churchyard.  Holy  Communion  was  celebrated 
only  three  times  a  year  ;  the  communicants  were  few ;  the  alma 
were  collected  in  an  old  wooden  saucer.  A  cracked  kitchen  basin 
inside  the  font  held  the  water  for  Holy  Baptism.  At  the  altar 
which  was  covered  by  a  moth-eaten  cloth,  stood  one  old  broken 


yS  Charles  Kingsley. 

chair;  and  so  averse  were  the  parish  authorities  o  any  changt 
that  when  the  new  rector  made  a  proposal  foi  monthly  commu 
nions,  it  was  only  accepted  on  his  promising  himself  to  supply  tht 
wine  for  the  celebration,  the  churchwardens  refusing  to  provide 
except  for  the  three  great  festivals.  This  he  continued  to  do  till  a 
few  years  since,  when  Sir  William  Cope  undertook  the  office  of 
rector's  churchwarden,  and  at  once  put  this  matter  on  a  right 
footing. 

The  evil  results  of  such  years  of  neglect  could  only  be  conquered 
by  incessant  labor,  and  the  young  rector's  whole  energies  were  de 
voted  to  the  parish.  He  had  to  redeem  it  from  barbarism  :  but 
it  was  a  gentle  barbarism,  for  the  people,  though  not  intelligently 
responsive,  were  a  kindly  people,  civil  and  grateful  for  notice,  and 
as  yet  wholly  uninjured  by  indiscriminate  almsgiving.  He  was 
daily  with  them  in  their  cottages,  and  made  a  point  of  talking  to 
tlie  men  and  boys  at  their  field  work,  till  he  was  personally  inti- 
mate with  every  soul  in  the  parish,  from  the  women  at  their  wash- 
tubs,  to  the  babies  in  the  cradle,  for  whom  he  always  had  a  loving 
word  or  look.  Nothing  escaped  his  eye.  That  hunger  for  knowl- 
edge on  every  subject,  which  characterized  him  through  life,  and 
made  him  ready  to  learn  from  every  laboring  man  what  he  could 
tell  him  of  his  own  farm  work  or  the  traditions  of  the  place,  had 
put  him  when  he  was  curate  on  an  easy  human  footing  with  the 
parishioners  and  was  one  secret  of  his  influence  ;  so  that  before  the 
state  of  his  health  obliged  him,  in  1848,  to  take  a  curate,  he  had 
got  the  parish  thoroughly  in  hand. 

It  wae  from  his  regular  house  to  house  visiting  in  the  week,  still 
more  than  his  church  services,  that  he  acquired  his  power.  If  a 
man  or  woman  were  suffering  or  dying,  he  would  go  to  them  five 
and  six  times  a  day — and  night  as  well  as  day — for  his  own  heart's 
sake  as  well  as  for  their  soul's  sake.  Such  visiting  was  very  rare 
in  those  days.  For  years  he  seldom  dined  out ;  never  during  the 
winter  months,  when  the  adult  school  and  the  cottage  readings 
took  up  six  evenings  in  the  week ;  and  he  seldom  left  the  rarish 
except  for  a  few  days  at  a  time  to  take  his  family  to  the  sea-side, 
which  occurred  the  more  frequertly  from  the  constant  Jlness  pro- 
duced by  the  damp  rectory ;  but  he  was  never  easy  away  from  hix 
ftork. 

His  only  relaxation  was  a  few  he  urs*  nsling  in  some  stream  close 


First  Confirmation.  79 

by.  He  never  took  a  gun  in  hand,  because  from  the  poaching 
tastes  of  his  people  he  felt  it  might  bring  him  into  unpleasant  col- 
lision with  them,  and  for  this  reason  he  never  wished  to  be  made  a 
magistrate,  lest  he  should  have  to  sit  on  the  bench  in  judgment  on 
his  parishioners.  He  could  not  afford  to  hunt,  and  when  in  after 
years  he  took  a  gallop  now  and  then  to  refresh  himself,  and  to  see 
his  friends  in  the  hunting-field,  where  he  was  always  welcome,  it 
was  on  some  old  horse  which  he  had  picked  up  cheap  for  parson's 
work.  "Another  old  screw,  Mr.  Kingsley,"  was  said  to  him  often 
by  middle  class  men,  who  were  well  aware  that  he  could  ride,  and 
that  he  knew  a  good  horse  when  he  saw  it.  They  perhaps  respected 
him  all  the  more  for  his  self-denial.  At  this  time  there  were  ken- 
nels in  the  parish;  the  fox-hounds  (now  known  as  Mr.  Garth's) 
were  kept  at  Bramshill,  Sir  John  Cope  being  Master.  His  stable 
men  were  a  very  respectable  set  of  men,  and  most  regular  at  church  ; 
and  the  rector,  though  he  could  not  afford  to  ride,  h-ad  always  a 
friendly  word  with  the  huntsman  and  whips ;  his  love  of  horses  and 
dogs  and  knowledge  of  sport  made  an  intimacy  between  them,  and 
he  soon  won  their  respect  and  affection.  Of  this  they  gave  early 
proof,  for  when  the  first  confirmation  after  his  induction  was  given 
out  in  church,  and  he  invited  all  who  wished  to  be  confirmed  to 
come  down  to  the  rectory  for  weekly  instruction,  the  stud  groom,  a 
respectable  man  of  five-and-thirty,  was  among  the  first  to  come, 
bringing  a  message  from  the  whips  and  stablemen  to  say  they  had 
all  been  confirmed  once,  but  if  Mr.  Kingsley  wished  it  they  would 
all  be  happy  to  come  again  ! 

It  had  hitherto  been  the  custom  in  Eversley  and  the  neighbor- 
ing parishes  to  let  the  confirmation  candidates  get  over  as  they 
could  to  some  distant  church,  where  the  catechumens  of  four  or  five 
parishes  assembled  to  meet  the  bishop.  Consequently  the  public- 
houses  were  usually  full  on  confirmation  day,  which  often  ended  in 
a  mere  drunken  holiday  for  boys  and  girls,  who  had  many  miles  to 
walk,  and  had  neither  superintendence  nor  refreshment  by  the  way 
provided  for  them.  When  he  became  rector,  matters  were  ar- 
ranged very  differently  for  the  Eversley  people.  Each  candidate 
was  prepared  separately  as  well  as  in  class,  for  six  weeks  before- 
hand, and  for  the  six  Sundays  previous  to  the  confirmation,  the 
catechism,  creeds,  and  oflice  of  confirmation  explained  publicly 
On  the  day  'tself  the  young  people  assembled  early  for  refreshment 


So  Charles  Kingsley, 

at  the  rectory,  whence  they  started  in  tw^  vans  for  Heckfieid 
church.  He  himself  wen';  with  the  boys,  and  his  wife  or  some 
trustworthy  person  with  the  girls,  and  never  lost  sight  of  them  till 
they  returned,  the  girls  to  their  homes,  the  boys  and  young  men, 
some  of  them  married  men,  who,  from  long  years  of  neglect,  had 
never  been  confirmed,  to  the  rectory,  where  a  good  dinner  awaited 
them,  and  they  spent  the  evening  in  wandering  over  the  glebe,  or 
'ooking  at  curiosities  and  picture-books  indoors,  ending  with  a  few 
words  on  their  duty.  So  henceforth  the  solemn  day  was  always 
associated  with  pleasant  thoughts  and  an  innocent  holiday,  which 
made  the  young  people  more  inclined  to  come  to  him  the  week 
following  to  be  prepared  for  Holy  Communion.  The  appearance 
and  manner  of  the  Eversley  catechumens  were  often  remarked  on 
— the  quiet  dresses  of  the  girls,  and  the  neat  caps  provided  for 
them.  These  seem  trifling  matters  to  dwell  on  in  days  when  such 
things  are  done  decently  and  in  order  in  all  parishes  :  but  thirty- 
two  years  ago  Eversley  set  the  example  on  Confirmation  as  well 
as  on  many  other  days. 

His  preaching  was  always  remarkable.  The  only  fault  which 
Bishop  Sumner  found  with  the  sermons  he  took  up  to  show  him 
when  he  went  to  Farnham  for  his  Priest's  Ordination,  was  that  they 
were  too  collr.quial :  but  it  was  this  very  peculiarity  which  arrested 
and  attracted  his  hearers,  and  helped  to  fill  a  very  empty  church. 
His  original  mind  and  common  sense  alike  revolted  from  the  use 
of  an  unmeaning  phraseology,  and  as  all  the  facts  of  life  were  to 
him  sacred,  he  was  unfettered  as  to  subject-matter  and  modes  of 
expression. 

During  the  summer  of  1844  he  made  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Mau- 
rice, to  whose  writings  he  owed  so  much  ;  and  the  acquaintancfl 
soon  strengthened  into  a  deep  and  enduring  friendship.  In  the  fol 
"owing  letter  he  first  ventured  to  consult  him  on  his  tiilficulties. 

*'Mv  Dear  Siii, 

"1  must  apologise  for  addressing  one  so  nnich  my  superioi, 
and  so  slightly  acquainted  with  me,  but  where  shall  ihe  youn* 
priest  go  for  advice,  but  to  the  elder  proi)het  ?  To  your  works  I 
am  indebted  for  the  foundation  of  any  coherent  view  of  the  word  of 
God,  the  meaning  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  the  spiritual 
phenomena  of  the  present  and  past  ages.  And  as  through  you» 
thoughts  (jod's  sj^irit  has  given  me  catholici  y,  to  whom  therefore 
c?.n  1  better  go  for  diitails  on  any  of  these  points  ? 


Letter  from  F.  D.  Maurice.  8l 

"Two  ihings  are  very  troublesome  to  me  at  present.  The  want 
of  any  i)!Hloso[jhical  method  of  readine;  the  Scriptures,  without  see- 
ing in  them  merely  proofs  of  human  systems  ;  and  the  great  prev- 
alence of  the  Ba])tist  form  of  dissent  in  my  parish.  The  latter  I 
find  myself  unable  to  cope  with,  founded  as  it  is  on  supra-lapsarian 
Calvinistic  dogmas,  which  have  been  received  into  the  heart  as  the 
deepest  counsels  of  God. 

"  I  therefore  beg  the  favor  of  your  advice  upon  these  two  sub- 
jects, and  feeling  that  much  may  be  said  that  would  not  be  written, 
I  must  beg,  if  I  am  not  guilty  of  too  great  an  intrusion,  that  you 
would  grant  me  an  interview  with  you  in  London. 

"  I  know  that  the  request  is  informal  according  to  the  ways  of 
che  world,  but  I  have  faith  enough  in  you  to  be  sure  that  you  will 
take  the  request  for  what  it  is,  an  earnest  struggle  to  get  wisdom  at 
all  risks  from  any  quarter  where  it  may  be  found."     .... 

The  reply  was  as  follows,  and  is  given  by  the  kind  permission  of 
Mr.  Maurice's  executors. 

REV.   F.  D.  MAURICE   TO   REV.  CHARLES    KINGSLEY. 

Jtily  22,  1844. 

•* .  .  .  I  should  be  sorry  not  to  give  you  the  experience  of 
any  blunders  I  may  have  committed  in  past  time,  with  such  expe- 
rience as  has  been  the  fruit  of  them,  and  it  is  sometimes  easier  to 
recover  the  different  fragments  of  this  experience,  and  to  piece 
them  together  in  writing  than  in  speaking. 

"With  respect  to  the  study  of  the  Scriptures,  my  own  great  error 
has  been  that  1  have  formed  and  abandoned  so  many  plans,  any 
one  of  vvhich,  honestly  pin-sued,  might  have  led  to  good  results. 
I  fancy  this  is  a  prevalent  temptation,  though  I  have  yielded  to  it 
and  suffered  fron-i  it  more  than  any  of  my  acquaintances.  As  I 
would  turn  diseases  to  commodity,  or,  at  least,  as  God  is  some- 
times mercifully  pleased  to  do  this  for  us,  I  think  I  may  say  that 
all  the  deplorable  waste  of  time  which  these  changes  have  oc- 
casioned, has  brought  with  it  this  compensation,  that  I  have  been 
solemnly  and  inwardly  imi^ressed  with  the  truth,  that  the  Bible,  as 
a  means  of  attaining  to  the  knowledge  of  the  living  God,  is  pre- 
cious beyond  all  expression  or  conception;  when  made  a  subf!?' 
tute  for  that  knowledge,  n-iay  become  a  greater  deadener  to  the 
human  spirit  than  all  other  books. 

"The  method  of  the  Bible  itself,  and  the  means  of  its  being 
overlooked,  I  think  become  more  and  more  clear  to  us,  as  we  keep 
this  consideration  before  us.  If  it  be  a  human  history,  containing 
a  gradual  discovery  of  God,  which  discovery  awakens  the  very  fac- 
ulties and  apprehensions  which  are  to  receive  it,  the  treatment  of 
it  ai'  a  collection  of  notions,  either  about  the  invisible  world  or  o\u 


S2  Charles  Kingsley, 

own  duty,  must  entirely  mislead  us  in  all  our  studies ;  and  whetlio 
we  rate  it  high  or  low,  whether  we  extol  it  as  the  one  rule  of  faith, 
maintain  its  authority  to  be  concurrent  with  that  of  Church  tradi- 
tion, or  look  upon  it  merely  as  a  set  of  fragments  containing  the 
speculations  of  a  certain  nation  about  religious  questions,  the  re- 
sult will  be  much  the  same.  In  each  case  the  end  of  the  book 
will  be  lost,  and  therefore  all  the  steps  to  that  end  will  be  confuEsd 
and  incomprehensible.  But  if  once  the  teachers  in  our  theological 
schools  would  have  courage  to  proclaim  theology  to  be  the  knowl 
edge  of  God,  and  not  the  teaching  of  a  religion,  I  am  satisfied  that 
the  scientific  character  of  the  Bible  could  be  brought  out  as  con- 
spicuously as  its  practical  character,  one  being  seen  to  be  involved 
in  the  other.  Then  it  would  not  be  necessary  to  assert  for  theol- 
ogy its  place  in  the  scientia  scientiarum,  or  to  bid  others  fall  into 
tlieir  places  in  connection  with  it,  and  subordination  to  it ;  nor 
would  it  be  necessary  to  be  perpetually  proclaiming  church  author- 
ity in  favor  of  such  and  such  doctrines.  The  truths  concerning 
God  would  be  felt  so  essential  to  the  elucidation  of  those  concern- 
ing man  and  nature,  the  relations  of  one  to  the  other  would  be  so  ev- 
ident, there  would  be  such  a  life  infused  into  the  features  of  human 
knowledge,  and  such  a  beautiful  order  and  unity  in  the  whole  of  it, 
that  the  opposition  to  them  would  be  recognized  as  proceeding 
just  as  much  from  ])rejudice  and  ignorance,  sure  to  disappear  when- 
ever there  were  not  moral  causes  to  sustain  them,  as  the  opposition 
to  gravitation  or  any  of  the  most  acknowledged  physical  or  mathe- 
m  itical  principles.  I  do  not  mean  that  this  effect  would  follow 
suddenly,  or  that  the  actual  impediments  to  the  gospel  from  human 
pride  and  wickedness  would  be  less  felt.  I  suppose  they  would  be 
more  felt  after  it  had  followed.  But  we  should  not  then  be  obliged 
to  acknowledge  that  much  of  the  resistance  to  the  most  precious 
principles  may  actually  proceed  from  a  love  to  some  others,  or 
even  to  those  same  ;  we  should  not  hear  such  a  din  of  voices  cry- 
ing out  for  this  thing  and  that ;  and  nearly  forgetting  God  in  their 
love  for  abstractions ;  we  should  not  see  so  much  violent  straining 
and  perverting  of  texts  to  serve  a  purpose ;  we  should  have  much 
less  idolatry  of  the  Bible,  and  muc  h  more  reverence  for  it.  And 
the  hard-working  clergy  of  our  parishes,  having  been  trained  in 
such  a  school  before  they  entered  upon  practical  duty,  would  feel 
a  clearness  in  their  minds,  a  readiness  for  occasions,  a  power  of 
biinging  their  studies  to  bear  upon  life,  instead  of  being  obliged,  as 
is  now  so  much  the  case,  either  to  shut  iheir  eyes  against  any  new 
light,  or  else  to  destroy  and  reconstruct  their  system  each  time  that 
any  is  vouchsafed  to  them.  But  since  our  universities  afford  us  no 
teaching  of  this  kind  at  present,  we  must  try  to  profit  by  the  helpi 
which  we  have.  Our  actual  work  is,  I  think,  the  best  of  these 
helps.  It  forces  us,  whether  we  will  or  no,  out  of  the  routine  of 
systems,  and  leads  us  to  seek  for  something  in  scripture  which  u 


I.etter  fro7?i  F.  D.  Miiurict.  83 

altogether  unlike  them.  And  though  I  would  strongly  arge  everv 
one  not  to  lose  sight  of  the  idea  of  that  system  of  which  I  have 
spoken,  I  would  by  no  means  recommend  any  one  who  was  not 
working  as  a  professed  theologian  in  the  schools,  to  spend  his  time 
in  contriving  how  he  may  adjust  his  own  reading  to  it.  The  use  of 
it  to  him  will  be  far  greater  if  he  recollects  that  it  exists  when  he 
is  reading  a  single  book,  or  chapter,  or  text,  than  if  he  determines 
Joggedly  to  follow  out  the  traces  of  it  fiom  Genesis  to  Revelation. 
The  subject  of  his  studies,  I  should  think,  must  be  always  best  de- 
termined by  the  wants  of  his  j^arish.  In  preaching,  I  have  always 
found  it  best  to  follow  the  order  of  the  services,  taking  my  subject 
from  the  epistle,  gospel,  collect,  or  first  lesson,  and  1  think  if  we 
read  on  a  plan,  we  can  hardly  find  a  much  better  one.  The  study 
of  words  also  is,  I  think,  of  immense  profit,  especially  of  families 
of  words,  as  e.g.,  StKatooj,  wo-ts,  wjua,  oauvr],  through  an  epistle,  or 
thiough  many.  Schmidt's  'Concordance'  is  worth  much  more,  it 
seems  to  me,  than  Schleusner's  or  Bretschn eider's  Lexicons ; 
though  I  do  not  mean  to  say  they  are  of  no  value.  I  think,  too, 
that  it  is  desirable,  cautiously  and  deliberately  to  question  our- 
selves about  the  leading  idea  of  any  Epistle  ;  I  say  cautiously  and 
deliberately,  because  the  mere  taking  up  with  customary  formulas 
on  the  subject,  such  as  that,  the  Epistles  to  the  Romans  and  Gala- 
tians  are  about  justification,  will,  I  am  satisfied,  lead  us  astray. 
These  Epistles  are,  I  am  convinced,  strikingly  diflerent  in  their 
object  and  character.  With  respect  to  the  Romans,  the  great  mis- 
chief is,  that  commentators  generally  start  from  the  third  chapter, 
looking  upon  the  first  and  second  as  merely  an  introduction  or 
prologue,  whereas  any  simple  reader  must  perceive  that  St.  Paul 
enters  at  once  on  his  subject,  and  that  it  is  really  the  (f>avipwcrL<;  Tr,% 
Buiaio(rvvrf<;  tou  deov,  and  not  an  abstract  theory  of  justification." 

"  .  .  .  It  is  difiicult  to  speak  on  the  second  point  in  your 
letter — the  Baptists  in  your  parish— without  knowing  how  far  they 
are,  or  are  not,  practically  Antinomian.  In  many  places  they  are, 
and  a  very  vulgar  brutal  sect  of  Antinomians.  Mr.  Hall,  who  was 
a  Baptist,  describes  such  a  class  of  men  as  existing  in  his  body, 
and  attacks  them  with  a  fury  which  proves  that  they  must  have 
acquired  great  influence,  and  have  been  very  numerous  in  his  life- 
time. In  that  case  I  should  not  be  inclined  to  argue  with  them 
against  their  ultra-Calvinism,  or  to  show  them  how  it  strengthens 
them  in  their  evil  courses ;  I  would  rather  admit  what  they  say 
when  they  refer  man's  goodness  and  conversion  to  the  will  of  God, 
and  press  the  assertion  of  the  apostle,  '  This  is  the  will  of  God, 
even  your  sanctification,'  that  all  the  purposes  of  God's  decrees 
must  be  to  make  men  righteous  as  He  is,  and  that  if  the  decrees  to 
which  they  appeal  do  not  produce  this  result,  they  are  not  His,  but 
the  devil's.  And  since  their  complaint  of  infant  baptism  must  b« 
on  the  ground  that  the  children  have  yet  given  no  sign  of  fa'th  ic 


84  Charles  Kings  ley. 

God,  you  may  A'ithout  any  personality,  or  any  direct  allusion  tc 
themselves,  as.k  how  far  the  facts  warrant  us  in  expecting  anj 
better  result  from  the  mature  conscious  baptism.  Supposing,  how- 
ever, they  should  be  honest,  earnest  men,  however  outrageous  may 
be  their  statements,  I  should  be  disposed  rather  to  take  advantag** 
of  their  doctrine,  than  to  repudiate  it.  You  say  that  man's  fall, 
and  all  other  events,  were  parts  of  a  great  scheme  of  God.  Well  1 
I  grant  you  that  the  fall  did  not  in  the  least  frustrate  the  scheme 
of  God.  I  grant  you  that  it  is  very  wrong  to  speak  as  if  He  had 
merely  devised  a  scheme  as  a  remedy  for  the  consequences  of  the 
fall.  Christ  was  before  all  things,  and  by  Him  all  things  consist. 
In  Him  He  created  man,  and  His  incarnation,  though  it  came 
later  than  the  fall,  was  really  in  God's  purpose  before  it.  What 
we  preach  is,  that  men,  being  endued  with  that  flesh  and  blood 
which  Christ  took,  are  to  be  looked  upon  as  objects  of  God's  love, 
and  that  they  are  to  be  accused  of  setting  at  nought  that  love. 
We  do  not  set  aside  election  ;  our  baptism  is  the  witness  for  it. 
By  it  we  refer  all  things  to  God  ;  we  testify  that  He  chooses  with- 
out reference  to  their  previous  merits  or  holiness,  and  that  all  gifts 
and  graces  come  from  Him.  Of  course  such  a  statement  as  this 
will  be  varied  according  to  the  capacities  of  tlie  auditor,  and  the 
nature  of  his  objections  ;  but  it  is  the  kind  of  language  I  should 
use,  and  that  not  from  any  calculation  as  to  the  effects  it  might 
produce,  but  from  believing  it  to  be  the  truest  and  honestest.  \\\ 
supra-lapsarian  Calvinism,  there  lies  a  deep  recognition  of  God  as 
a  living  being,  an  originating  will,  which  the  feeble,  frittering 
phrases  of  Arminianism  can  provide  no  substitute  for.  The  great 
misery  of  the  Calvinist  is,  his  constant  substitution  of  the  idea  of 
sovereignty  for  that  of  righteousness,  which  is  the  one  always 
brought  before  us  in  Scripture.  I  would  seek  to  deliver  him  from 
that  evil,  but  as  far  as  possible  keeping  entire  and  unhurt  that 
which  he  has  already."     .... 

We  return  to  his  own  letters. 

The  news  of  his  brother  Lieut.  Kingsley's  death  from  fever  in 
Torres  Straits,  on  board  H.M.S.  "  RoyaUst,"  now  reached  Eng- 
land, and  he  writes  to  his  wife  from 

Chelsea,  Fein  lary  26,  1S45. 

.  .  .  It  is  sad — very  sad — but  what  is  to  be  said  ?  I  iaw 
him  twice  last  night  in  two  different  dreams — strong  and  well  -and 
so  much  grown — and  I  kissed  him  and  wept  over  him — and  woke 
to  the  everlasting  No  ! 

'•  As  far  as  externals  go,  it  has  been  very  sad.  The  sailors  say 
rommonly  that  there  is  but  a  sheet  of  paper  between  Torres  Straiti 


Death  of  Lieut.   Kingshy.  85 

and  HelL  Anil  there  he  lay,  and  the  wretched  crew,  in  the  little 
brig,  roasting  and  pining,  day  after  day — never  heard  of,  or  hearing 
of  living  soul  for  a  year  and  a  half.  The  commander  died — half 
the  crew  died — and  so  they  died  and  died  on,  till  in  May  no  officer 
u'as  left  but  Gerald,  and  on  the  17th  of  September  he  died  too, 
and  so  faded  away,  and  we  shall  never  see  him  more— for  ever  ? 
God  that  saved  me  knows.  Then  one  Parkinson,  the  boatswain, 
had  to  promote;  himself  to  kee[)  the  pendant  flying,  all  the  officers 
being  dead,  and  in  despair  left  his  post  and  so  brought  the  brig 
home  to  Singapore,  with  great  difficulty,  leaking,  with  her  mast 
sprung — her  crew  half  dead — a  doomed  vessel.  O  God,  Thou 
alone  knowest  the  long  bitter  withering  baptism  of  fire,  wherewith 
the  poor  boy  was  baptized,  day  and  night  alone  with  his  own  soul. 
And  yet  Thou  wert  right — as  ever — perhaps  there  was  no  way  but 
that  to  bring  him  to  look  himself  in  the  face,  and  know  that  life 
was  a  reality,  and  not  a  game  !  And  who  dare  say  that  in  those 
weary,  weary  months  of  hope  deferred,  the  heart  eating  at  itself, 
did  not  gnaw  through  the  crust  of  vanities  (not  of  so  very  long 
growth  either),  and  the  living  water  which  he  did  drink  in  his 
childhood  tind  vent  and  bubble  up  !  Why  not — seeing  that  God 
is  love  ?".... 


Early  in  1845  Dean  Wood,  of  the  Collegiate  Church  of  Middle* 
ham,  having  two  vacant  stalls  to  dispose  of,  offered  one  to  his  son, 
the  Rev.  Peter  Wood,  now  Rector  of  Copford,  and  the  other  to 
Charles  Kingsley,  his  son's  old  college  friend.  The  canonries 
were  honorary,  and  had  no  duties  connected  with  them,  but  being 
of  historic  interest,  the  two  friends  accepted  the  honor,  and 
went  down  together  to  be  inducted,  to  the  stalls  of  St.  Anthony 
and  St.  George.  The  deanery  was  abolished  in  1856,  on  the 
death  of  Dean  Wood.  This  was  his  first  visit  to  Vorksliire, 
a  county  attractive  to  him,  from  its  people  as  much  as  from  its 
scenery. 

The  rest  of  the  year  was  spent  quietly  at  Eversley  in  parish  work 
and  sermon  writing  :  but  the  state  of  parties  in  Church  and  State, 
especially  the  former,  lay  heavy  on  his  heart,  and  made  him  very 
anxious  to  join  or  start  some  periodical  in  which  the  young  men  of 
the  day  could  find  a  vehicle  for  free  expression  of  their  opinions 
The  *  Oxford  and  Cambridge  Review  '  was  then  in  existence,  and 
it  was  proposed  to  make  that  the  vehicle,  and  if  not,  to  start  a  re« 
one.  On  all  these  p,)ints  Mr.  Maurice  was  consulted,  though  hfi 
rould  not  join. 


86  Charles  Kingsley, 

10   THE    REV.  R.  COWLEY    POWLES. 

Chelsea,  Euimber  ii,  1845. 

"  About  the  '  Oxford  and  Cambridge  Review.' — Froude  seems 
to  dread  any  fresh  start,  ....  and  I  shall  chew  the  cud  and 
try  to  find  out  my  own  way  a  little  longer  before  I  begin  trying  to 
lead  others. 

"  God  help  us  all  !  for  such  a  distempered  tangled  juncture 
must  end  in  the  cutting  of  the  Gordian  knot,  by  the  higher  or 
lower  powers  ;  and  as  the  higher  have  fairly  denied  their  cutting 
ability  and  have  given  it  up,  perhaps  the  lower  may  try  their  hands 
at  it.  I  would,  if  1  were  hovering  between  nine  shillings  a  week 
and  the  workhouse,  as  the  sum  of  all  attainabilities  this  side  of 
heaven.  God  help  us  all !  I  say  again  ;  for  there  is  no  counsel  to 
be  got  anywhere  from  man,  and  as  for  God's  book,  men  have 
made  it  mean  anything  and  nothing,  with  their  commenting  and 
squabbling,  and  doctrine  picking,  till  one  asks  with  Pilate,  '  What  is 
truth  ? '"  Well,  at  all  events,  God  knows,  and  Christ  the  King 
knows,  and  so  all  nmst  go  right  at  last,  but  in  the  meantime  ? 

"  I  am  just  now  a  sort  of  religious  Shelley,  an  Ishmael  of  catho- 
licity, a  John  the  Baptist,  minus  his  spirit  and  power,  alas  !  be- 
moaning myself  in  the  wilderness.  Were  I  to  stop  praying,  and 
remembering  my  own  sins  daily,  1  could  become  a  Democritus 
Junior,  and  sitting  upon  the  bench  of  contemplation,  make  the 
w^oild  my  cock-pit,  wherein  main  after  main  of  cocklets — the 
'  shell,'  alas  !  scarce  '  off  their  heads,'  come  forth  to  slay  and  be 
slain,  mutually,  for  no  quarrel,  except  '  thou-cock  art  not  me-cock, 
therefore  fight  ! '  But  I  had  as  soon  be  the  devil  as  old  Lucretius, 
to  sit  with  him  in  the  '  Sapientum  templa  serena,  despicere  unde 
queas  alios,  atque,  cernere  passim  errantes.'  One  must  feel  for 
one's  fellows — so  much  better,  two  out  of  three  of  them  than  one's 
self,  though  they  will  fill  themselves  with  the  east  wind,  and  be 
proportionably  dyspeptic  and  sulky. 

"  Nobpdy  trusts  nobody.  The  clergy  are  split  up  into  innumer- 
able parties,  principally  nomadic.  Every  one  afraid  to  speak. 
Every  one  unwilling  to  listen  to  his  neighbor ;  and  in  the  mean- 
time vast  sums  are  spent,  and  vast  work  undertaken,  and  }et 
nobody  is  content.  Everybody  swears  we  are  going  backward. 
Everybody  swears  it  is  not  his  fault,  but  the  Evangelicals,  or  the 
Puseyites,  or  the  Papists,  or  the  ministry  ;  or  everybody,  in  short, 
who  does  not  agree  with  him.  Pardon  this  jeremiad,  but  I  am  an 
owl  in  the  desert,  and  it  is  too  sad  to  see  a  huge  and  busy  body  of 
clergy,  u'terly  unable  to  gain  the  confidence  or  spiritual  guidance 
of  the  nation,  and  yet  never  honestly  taking  the  blame  each  man 
upon  himself,  and  saying,  *  I,  not  ye  have  sinned.' 

"  Pardon,  again,  ihis  threnodia,  but  I  am  sick  of  matters,  and  do 
earnestly  wish  for  son?  ?  one  to  whc  m  to  pour  out  my  heart.     The 


Hiving  a  Swarm  of  Bees.  %y 

principles  which  the  great  kings  and  bishops  of  the  middle  ages, 
and  our  reformers  of  the  i6th  century  felt  to  be  the  foundation  of 
a  Church  and  nation,  are  now  set  at  nought  equally  by  those 
who  pretend  to  worship  the  middle  ages,  and  those  who  swear  by 
the  reformers.  And  Popery  and  Puritanism  seem  to  be  fighting 
their  battle  over  again  in  England,  on  the  foul  middle  ground  oi 
mammonite  infidelity.  They  are  re-appearing  in  weaker  and  less 
sincere  forms,  but  does  that  indicate  the  approach  of  their  individ- 
ual death,  or  our  general  decay  ?     He  who  will  tell  me  this  shall  be 

my  prophet :  till  then  1  must  be  my  own 

"  .  ,  .  .  My  game  is  gradually  opening  before  me,  and  my  ideas 
getting  developed,  and  '  fixed,'  as  the  Germans  would  say.  But, 
alas  !  as  Hare  has  it,  is  not  in  one  sense  '  every  man  a  liar  ?  '  false 
to  his  own  idea,  again  and  again,  even  if,  which  is  rare  now-a-days, 
we  have  one  ?  " 

TO   HIS   WIFE. 

EVERSLEY,  May,  1846. 

"...  I  got  home  at  four  this  morning  after  a  delicious 
walk — a  poem  in  itself  I  never  saw  such  a  sight  before  as  the 
mists  on  the  heath  and  valleys,  and  never  knew  what  a  real  bird 
chorus  was.     I  am  lonely  enough,  but  right  glad  I  came,  as  there 

is  plenty  to  do I  shall  start  to-morrow  morning,  and 

will  lose  no  time  waiting  for  coaches  at  Ryde,  but  walk  on  at  once 

to  Shanklin.     St.  Elizabeth  progresses,  and  consolidates 

I  have  had  a  great  treat  to-day  ;  saw  a  swarm  of  bees  hived,  for 
the  fijat  time  in  my  life.  Smith  was  gone  to  Heckfield,  so  (j. 
White  sent  his  cart  for  old  Home  ;  and  I  stood  in  the  middle  of 
the  flying  army,  and  saw  the  whole  to  my  great  delight.  Certainly 
man,  even  in  the  lowest  grade,  is  infinitely  wonderful,  and  infinitely 
brave — give  him  habit  and  selfconfidence.  To  see  all  those  little 
poisonous  insects  crawling  over  Home,  wrapt  in  the  one  thought 
of  their  new-born  sister-queen  !  I  hate  to  think  that  it  is  vile  self- 
interest — much  less  mere  brute  magnetism  (called  by  the- ignorant 
•instinct'),  which  takes  with  them  the  form  of  loyalty,  prudence, 
order,  belf-sacrifice.  How  do  we  know  that  they  have  no  souls  ? 
'Tiie  b>?asts  which  perish?'  Ay,  but  put  against  that  'the  spirit 
of  !he  beast  which  goeth  downward  to  the  earth' — and  whither 
then  ?  '  Man  perisheth,'  too,  in  scripture  language,  yet  not  for 
ever.     But  I  will  not  dream, 

"I  fancy  you  and  baby  playing  in  the  morning.     Bless  you,  my 

two  treasures I  had  a  most  busy  and  interesting  day 

yesterday  in  London.  Called  on  *  *  *  and  found  him  under- 
going all  the  horrors  of  a  deep,  and  as  I  do  think,  healthy  baptism 
of  fire — not  only  a  conversion,  but  a  discovery  that  God  and  the 
devil  are  living  realities,  fighting  for  his  body  and  soul.  Thi3> 
in  a  man  of  vast  thought  and  feeling,  who  has  been  for  yta^  s  a 


S8  Charles  Kings  ley. 

ronfinned  •materialist,  is  hard  work.     He    entreated   me    not    tc 

leave  him 

"God  help  us  all.  and  save  our  country — not  so  much  from  the 
fate  of  France,  as  from  the  fiite  of  Rome — internal  decay,  and  fall- 
ing to  pieces  by  its  own  weight;  but  I  will  say  no  more  of  this— ■ 
jierhaps  J  think  too  much  about  it."     .... 

TO   THE    REV.    R.    C.    POWLES. 

Dtcembtr,  1846. 

'*  Do  not,  for  God's  sake,  compliment  me.  If  you  knew  the 
mean,  inconsistent,  desultory  being  I  am  in  action,  in  spite  of  my 
fine  words,  you  would  be  ashamed  of  me,  as  I  am  of  myself.  But 
I  cannot  stave  off  the  conviction  of  present  danger  and  radical 
disease  in  our  national  religion.  And  though  I  laugh  at  myself 
sometimes  for  conceit  and  un charitableness — tamen  usque  recurrit — 
that  hand-writing  on  the  wall  ;  that  '  mene,  mene '  against  Angli- 
canism and  Evangelicalism  at  once* — both  of  which  more  and  mors 
daily  prove  to  me  their  utter  im|)otence  to  meet  our  social  evils 
Six  nionths  in  a  country  parish  is  enough  to  prove  it.  What  is  tc 
be  done  I  do  not  see.  A  crisis,  political  and  social,  seems  approach 
ing,  and  religion,  like  a  rootless  plant,  may  be  brushed  away  in  the 
struggle.  Maurice  is  full  of  fear — I  had  almost  said  despondence — 
and  he,  as  you  know,  has  said  in  his  last  book,  that  '  The  real  struggle 
of  the  day  will  be,  not  between  Popery  and  Protestantism,  but  be- 
tween Atheism  and  Christ.'  And  here  we  are  daubing  walls  with 
untempered  mortar — quarrelling  about  how  we  shall  patch  the 
superstructure,  forgetting  that  the  foundation  is  gone — Faith  in 
anything.  As  in  the  days  of  Noah  with  the  Titans — as  in  the  days 
of  Mahomet  with  the  Christian  sects  of  the  East,  they  were  eating, 
and  drinking,  and  quarrelling,  no  doubt,  and  behold  the  flood 
came  and  swept  them  all  away.  And  even  such  to  me  seems  the 
prospect  of  the  English  Church. 

"  People  say  indignantly,  '  Oh  !  but  look  at  her  piety  ;  look  at 
the  revival  ;  her  gospel  doctrines  ;  her  church-building.  She  is 
beginning  to  live  and  not  to  die.'  But  we  who  have  read  history 
know  how  the  candle  always  flames  up  at  the  last  with  a  false  gal- 
vanic life,  when  the  spirit  is  gone.  Remember  the  Church  in  Eng- 
land just  before  the  Reformation,  how  she  burst  out  into  new  life ; 
how  she  reformed  her  monasteries;  how  she  filled  her  pulpits; 
how  she  built  more  churches  and  colleges  in  fifty  years  than  she  had 
in  two  hundred  before — Somersetshire  as  a  single  example — how 
she  was  in  every  respect,  within  as  well  as  without,  imineasu:abl)' 
improved  just  before  the  monasteries  were  dissolved.  But  hei 
time  was  come.  'The  old  order'  was  to  'change,'  'giving  place 
to  the  new'  while  God  'fulfils  Himself  in  many  ways,' as  Tennyson 
has  it.     And  not  even  a  More  and  a  Fisher  c;uld  save  her  fronc 


A  Periodical  Proposed.  89 

her  fire-Jeath,  and  i)hoenix  resurrection.  Alene  !  Mene !  I  say 
again  for  us. 

"But  we  must,  in  the  widest  and  divinest  sense,  make  friends  6f 
the  Mammon  of  unrighteousness.  It  is  the  new  commercial  aris- 
tocracy ;  it  is  the  scientific  go-ahead-ism  of  the  day  wiiich  must 
save  us,  and  which  we  must  save.  We  have  hcked  the  feet  of  the 
feudal  aristocrats  for  centuries,  and  see  whither  they  have  brought 
us,  or  let  lis  bring  ourselves.  In  plain  truth,  the  English  clergy 
must  Arnold-ise,  if  they  do  not  wish  to  go  either  to  Rome  or  to  the 
workhouse,  before  fifty  years  are  out.  There  is,  I  do  believe,  an 
Arnoldite  spirit  rising  ;  but  most  *  laudant,  non  sequuntur,'  De- 
cent Anglicanism,  decent  Evangelical  Conservatism  (or  Evangeli- 
calism) having  become  the  majorit}^  is  now  quite  Conservative, 
and  each  ])arty  playing  Canute  and  the  tide,  as  it  can  scramble 
into  the  chair  of  authority.  I  would  devote  soul  and  body  to  get 
together  an  Arnoldite  ])arty  of  young  men.  If  we  could  but  begin 
a  periodical  in  which  ever)  one  should  be  responsible  by  name  for 
his  own  article,  thereby  covering  any  little  differences  of  opinion, 
guch  as  must  always  exist  in  a  reforming  party  (though  not  in  a 
dead-bone-galvanising  one,  like  the  Tractarians).  If  we  could  but 
start  anything  daring  and  earnest  as  a  '  coroccio,'  or  flag  of  misery, 
round  which,  as  round  David  in  the  mountains,  the  spiritual  rag- 
tag might  rally,  and  howl  harmonious  the  wrongs  of  the  clergy  and 
of  literary  men,  it  were  a  great  thing  gained  ! 

"  I  have  had  serious  thoughts  of  what  such  a  thing  ought  to  be. 
Its  two  mottoes  should  be  Anti-Manichfeism — (and  therefore  Anti 
Tractarian,  and  Anti-Evangelicalj  and  Anti-Atheism.  To  attack 
unsparingly  those  two  things  in  every  one,  from  the  bishop  to  the 
peasant ;  and  to  try,  on  the  positive  side,  to  show  how  all  this  pro- 
gress of  society  in  the  present  day  is  really  of  God,  and  God's 
work,  and  has  potential  and  latent  spiritual  elements,  which  it  is 
the  duty  and  the  glory  of  the  clergy,  if  they  are  a  clergy,  to  unfold 
and  christen.  We  should  require  a  set  of  articles  on  Church  Re- 
form, a  set  on  the  Art  of  Worship,  which  should  show  that  the 
worshipless  state  of  Evangelicalism  is  no  more  necessary  than  good, 
and  that  Protestantism  can  just  as  much  inspire  itself  into  a  glorious 
artistic  ritual  of  its  own,  as  Popery  and  Anglicanism  have  into  one 
of  their  own.  Then  we  should  want  a  set  of  Condition-of-the-Poor- 
Ballads  or  articles,  or  anything  'spicy'  on  that  point.  A  set  on 
the  Religion  of  Science,  and  a  set  on  Modern  Poetry  and  the 
Drama,  cursing  the  opera  and  praying  for  the  revival  of  the  legiti- 
mate. 

"  This,  I  think,  might  keep  the  game  alive,  if  men  would  only  be 
bold  and  'ride  recklessly  across  country.'  As  soon  as  a  man's 
blood  is  cool,  the  faster  he  goes  the  safer  he  goes.  Try  to  pick 
your  way  and  you  tumble  down.  If  men  would  but  believe  this 
and   be   bold;  we  want   some    o\   that  'absolutifm'  which   gave 


90  Charles  Kingsley. 

strength  to  the  Middle  Ages  ;  and  it  is  only  the  tyranny  of  fashiot 
and  respectability  which  keeps  us  from  it  ;  for  put  the  Englishman 
into  a  new  country,  break  the  thrall  of  habit  and  the  fear  of  man, 
and  he  becomes  great,  absolute.  Titanic  at  once." 

The  Magazine  plan  came  to  nothing,  and  1846  passed  unevent- 
less  in  the  routine  of  parish  work  and  home  happiness.  Adult 
classes,  a  music  class  on  Hullah's  plan  to  improve  the  church 
nmsic  (which  had  been  entirely  in  the  hands  of  three  or  four  pool 
men,  with  a  trombone  and  two  clarionets)  brought  his  people  on 
several  nights  in  the  week  up  to  the  rectory,  where  the  long,  un- 
furnished dining-room  served  the  purpose  of  schoolroom.  He  nevei 
cared  to  leave  his  quiet  home,  doubly  enriched  by  the  presence  of 
a  little  daughter. 

The  following  year  his  "Life  of  St.  Elizabeth,"  which  was 
begun  in  prose  in  1842,  and  had  been  gradually  growing  under  his 
hand,  took  the  form  of  a  drama.  After  working  at  it  in  this  new 
form  for  some  months,  the  thought  of  publishing  it  crossed  his 
mind ;  but  he  was  so  uncertain  as  to  whether  it  was  worth  print- 
ing, that  he  decided  nothing  till  he  had  consulted  four  friends  on 
whose  judgment  and  poetical  verdict  he  could  rely — the  Hon.  and 
Rev.  Gerald  VVellesley,  then  Rector  of  Strathfieldsaye,  now  Dean 
of  Windsor ;  Rev.  F.  D.  Maurice  ;  Rev.  Derweot  Coleridge,  of 
St.  Mark's  ;  and  the  Rev.  R.  C.  Powles.  Their  opinion  was  unani- 
mous, but  the  difficulty  was  to  find  a  publisher  who  would  under- 
take the  work  of  a  young  and  unknown  author.  He  took  the  MSS. 
to  London,  from  whence  he  wrote  home, 

"  I  breakfasted  with  Maurice  this  morning,  and  went  over  a  great 
deal  of  St.  Elizabeth,  and  I  cannot  tell  you  how  thankful  I  am  to 
God  about  it.  He  has  quite  changed  his  mind  about  scene  i  of 
act  ii.,  Elizabeth's  bower.  He  read  it  to  Powles,  who  is  decidedly 
for  keeping  it  in  just  as  it  is,  and  thinks  it  ought  to  offend  no  one. 
He  is  very  desirous  to  show  the  MSS.  to  A.  G.  Scott,  Mrs.  H. 
Coleridge,  Tennyscn,  and  Van  Artevelde  Taylor.  He  says  that 
it  ought  to  do  great  good  with  those  who  can  take  it  in,  but  for 
those  who  cannot,  it  ought  to  have  a  preface  :  and  has  more  than 
hinted  that  he  will  help  me  to  one,  by  writing  me  something  which, 
if  I  like,  I  can  prefix.     What  more  would  you  have  ?...." 

"Coleridge's  opinion  of  the  poem  is  far  higher  than  I  expected. 
He  sent  me  to  Pickering  with  a  highly  recommendatory  note  ;  which 
however,  joined  with  Maurice's  preface,  was  not  sufficient  to  make 
him  take  the  risK  off  my  hands. 


S^.  Elizabeth  in  Press.  91 

'*  I  am  now  going  to  Parker's,  in  the  Strand.  I  am  at  once 
very  happy,  very  lonely,  and  very  anxious.  How  absence  in- 
creases love  !  It  is  positively  good  sometimes  to  be  parted,  that 
one's  affection  may  become  conscious  of  itself,  and  proud,  and 
humble,  and  thankful  accordingly.     ..." 

Messrs.  Parker,  of  445  West  Strand,  undertook  the  publication 
and  he  writes  joyfully  to  Mr.  Powles  : 

"  St.  Elizabeth  is  in  the  press,  having  been  taken  off  my  handt 
by  the  heroic  magnanimity  of  Mr.  J.  Parker,  West  Strand,  who, 
though  a  burnt  child,  does  not  dread  the  fire.  No  one  else  would 
have  it. 

"  Maurice's  preface  comes  out  with  it,  and  is  inestimably  not 
only  to  I  myself  I,  but  to  all  men  who  shall  have  the  luck  to  read 
it,  and  the  wit  to  understand  it.  I  had  hoped  to  have  shown  it  to 
you  before  it  went,  but  '  non  concessere  column^.'  " 

His  eldest  son  was  born  this  year,  and  named  after  Mr.  Maurice, 
who  with  Mr.  Powles,  stood  sponsors  to  the  boy.  In  the  summer 
he  took  his  wife  and  two  children  for  six  weeks  to  Milford,  a  little 
sea-side  place  near  the  edge  of  the  New  Forest.  It  was  his  first 
six  weeks'  holiday  since  his  marriage,  which  he  earned  by  taking 
the  Sunday  services  of  Pennington,  near  Lyniington.  Here  he 
had  a  horse,  and  the  ride  in  the  beautiful  scenery  of  the  New  Forest, 
dear  to  him  from  old  association  with  his  father's  youth  and  man- 
hood, excited  his  imagination.  It  was  only  either  at  a  great  crisis 
in  his  life,  or  in  a  time  when  all  his  surroundings  were  in  perfect 
harmony,  that  he  could  compose  poetry.  And  now,  when  in  the 
forest,  and  in  the  saddle  once  more,  or  alone  with  his  beloved  ones, 
with  leisure  to  watch  his  babies,  his  heart's  spring  bubbled  up  into 
song,  and  he  composed  several  ballads  : — "  Oh  she  tripped  over 
Ocknell  plain,"  "  The  Red  King,"  and  "  The  Outlaw." 

He  explored  the  forest  day  after  day,  with  deep  delight,  and 
laid  up  a  store  of  impressions  which  in  later  years  he  began  to 
work  up  into  a  New  Forest  Novel.  This,  however,  was  nevei 
completed 


CHAPTER  VII. 

1848. 
Aged  29. 

Publication  of  "  Saint's  Tiagedy' — Chartist  Iliots — Tenth  of  Apiil-  Politics  fa 
the  People — Profissorship  a*^  Queen's  College — "  Yeast  " — 111  less. 

This  yeai,  so  marked  in  the  history  of  Europe,  was  one  of  the 
most  important  of  Charles  Kingtley's  life.  "  The  Saint's  Tragedy  " 
was  published  soon  after  Christmas,  and,  though  it  made  little  im- 
pression on  the  literary  world  in  England,  yet  gave  him  in  one 
sense  a  new  position,  especially  among  young  men  at  the  universi- 
ties. The  Drama  was  eagerly  read  at  Oxford,  and  fiercely  at- 
tacked by  the  high  church  party,  who  were  to  be  made  still  more 
bitter  against  its  author  by  the  publication  of  "Yeast,"  which  came 
out  later  in  the  year  as  a  seiial  in  "  PVaser's  Magazine."  He  was 
surprised  himself  to  find  the  interest  "The  Saint's  Tragedy"  had 
excited  at  Oxford.  In  Germany  it  was  read  and  appreciated, 
and  Chevalier  Bunsen  expressed  his  opinion  in  very  strong  terms 
about  it.  In  higher  quarters  still  the  genius  of  the  author  was 
recognized. 

The  Tragedy  was  reviewed,  not  very  favorably,  by  Mr.  (after- 
wards Professor)  Conington  at  Oxford.  This,  however,  led  to  ar 
acquaintance,  between  author  and  critic,  which  soon  ripened  into 
friendship;  and  when,  in  the  course  of  a  few  months,  "Politics  foi 
the  People "  were  published,  Mr.  Conington  became  not  only  a 
warm  ally  in  the  cause,  but  a  regular  contributor,  and  constant 
visi-tor  at  Eversley. 

During  the  winter  he  went  to  Oxford  to  stay  a  fe  ,v  days  with  his 
friend,  Mr.  Powles,  Fellow  of  E.Kcter ;  and  he  writes  to  hij 
wife  : — 

Oxford,  Ularci  jo,  1848. 

".  .  .  I  may,  I  suppose,  tell  you  that  I  am  here  undergoing 
the  new  process  of  being  made  a  lion  of,  at  h^ast  so  Powles  tells 
ine.     They  got  up  a  meeting  for  me,  and  the  club   was  crowdec' 


Parish    Work.  93 

fv'ith  J  viii  u'.'^rely  to  see  poor  me,  so  I  found  out  c^ftcivards  :  very 
lucky  that  I  did  not  know  it  during  the  process  of  being  trotted 
out.  It  is  very  funny  and  new.  1  dine  this  afternoon  wilh  Con- 
ingt9J» ;  to-morrow  with  Palgrave  ;  Monday  with  Stanley,  and  so 
on.  1  like  Conington  very  much  ;  he  is  a  good,  hearty  piece  ol 
raluie  ;  and  I  like  his  review  very  much.  Of  course  he  did  not 
go  to  the  bottom  on  the  Love  and  Marriage  question  ;  but  there 
he  showed  his  sense.  Froude  gets  more  and  more  interesting. 
We  had  such  a  conversation  this  morning — the  crust  is  breaking, 
and  tbi  man  coming  through  that  cold  polished  shell.  My  darling 
babies  !  kiss  them  very  much  for  me.  Monday  I  go  to  Chalgrove 
Field,  lo  see  Hampden's  martyr  place." 

His  parish  work  this  year  was  if  possible  more  vigorous  than 
ever.  Every  winter's  evening  was  occupied  with  either  night- 
school  at  the  rector}^,  about  thirty  men  attending  ;  or  little  services' 
in  the  outlying  cottages  for  the  infirm  and  laboring  men  after  their 
day'»  work.  During  the  spring  and  summer  a  writing  class  was 
held  for  girls  in  the  empty  coach-house  ;  a  cottage  school  for  in- 
fants was  also  begun  on  the  common — all  preparing  the  way  for 
the  National  School  that  was  to  be  built  some  years  later,  and  for 
which  the  teacher  was  in  training.  The  parish  made  a  great  step 
forward.  The  number  of  conmiunicants  increased.  The  daily 
services  and  evening  sermons  in  Passion  week  seemed  to  borrow 
intenser  fervor  and  interest  from  the  strange  events  of  the  great 
world  outside  the  small  quiet  parish,  and  though  poorly  attended, 
still  gathered  together  a  few  laboring  folk. 

The  political  events  which  shook  all  Europe  to  its  very  founda 
tions,  stirred  his  blood,  and  seemed  for  the  time  to  give  him  a 
supernatural  strength,  which  kept  up  till  the  autumn,  when  he 
completely  broke  down.  He  wrote  an  article  for  "Eraser's  Maga- 
zine" (the  first  he  ever  contributed  to  a  periodical)  on  Popery: 
"  Why  should  we  fear  the  Romish  Priests?"  following  up  his 
•*  Saint's  Tragedy,"  which  had  struck  the  key  note  of  the  after 
work  of  his  life  ;  and  "  Yeast  "  now  was  seething  in  his  mind.  Of 
his  contributions  to  "Politics  for  the  People  "  more  will  be  said 
hereafter.  He  preached  to  his  people  on  emigration,  on  poaching, 
and  or.  the  political  and  social  disturbances  of  the  day.  In  addi- 
tion to  parish  and  literary  work  he  accepted  the  Professorship  of 
English  Literature  and  Composition  at  Queen's  College,  Harley 
Street,  then  in  its  infancy,  of  which  Mr.  Maurice   was  Presidert 


94  Charles  Kingsley. 

and  he  went  up  to  London  to  give  a  lectuie  once  a  week.  He  waj 
also  proposed  for  a  professorship  at  King's  College.  He  was  in 
constant  communication  with  Mr.  Maurice  and  the  knot  of  re- 
markable men  who  gathered  round  him.  He  made  acquaintance 
with  Bishop  Stanley,  of  Norwich,  and  his  distinguished  son ;  with 
Archdeacon  Hare,  Arthur  Helps,  John  Hullah,  James  Anthony 
Froude,  John  Malcolm  Ludlow,  and  many  other  men  of  mark,  but 
to  none  did  he  become  more  strongly  attached  than  to  Mr.  Thomas 
Hughes. 

On  the  news  of  the  Chartist  rising  and  petition  reaching  Evers- 
ley,  he  determined,  having  closed  his  evening  classes  in  the  parish 
for  the  winter,  to  go  to  London  for  a  few  days  ;  and  on  the  morn- 
ing of  the  loth  of  April,  with  his  friend  Mr.  John  Parker,  jun.,  who 
had  been  spending  the  Sunday  at  Eversley,  he  went  up  to  see 
what  was  going  on.  Mr.  Parker,  like  many  owners  of  property  in 
London,  was  nervous  and  anxious  about  the  results  of  the  day, 
telling  Mrs.  Kingsley,  half  in  joke  as  he  left  the  door,  that  she 
might  expect  to  hear  of  his  shop  having  been  broken  into,  and 
himself  thrown  into  the  Trafalgar  Square  fountains  by  the  mob. 

On  arriving  in  London,  they  went  to  the  house  of  business  at 
445  West  Strand,  then  on  to  Mr.  Maurice's  ;  and  in  the  afternoon 
he  and  Mr.  Ludlow  walked  to  Kennington  Common,  where  pour- 
ing rain  damped  the  spirits  of  the  crowds  assembled.  By  mid-day 
post  he  wrote  to  Eversley. 

London,  April  lo,  Monday. 

" .  .  .  All  is  right  as  yet.  Large  crowds,  but  no  one  expects 
any  row,  as  the  Chartists  will  not  face  Westminster  Bridge,  but  are 
gone  round  by  London  Bridge  and  Holborn,  and  are  going  to  send 
up  only  the  legal  number  of  Delegates  to  the  House.  1  am  just 
going  on  to  Maurice,  The  only  fear  is  maurauding  in  the  suburbs 
at  night  ;  but  do  not  fear  for  me,  I  shall  be  safe  at  Chelsea  at  5. 
I  n)et  Colonel  Herman,  who  says  there  is  no  danger  at  all,  and 
the  two  Mansfields,  who  are  gone  as  specials,  to  get  hot,  dusty, 
and  tired — nothing  else.  I  will  send  down  a  letter  by  the  latest 
post." 

April  II,  Evening. 

"The  events  of  a  week  have  been  crowded  into  a  few  hours.  I 
was  up  till  4  this  morning,  writing  posting  placards  under  Maurice's 
auspices,  one  of  which  is  to  be  got  out  to-morrow  morning,  the 
rest  when  we  can  get  money.     Couhi  you  not  beg  a  few  sovereigni 


Address  to   Workmen,  95 

somewhere,  to  help  these  poor  wretches  to  the  truest  alms  ? — to 
words— texts  from  the  Psalms,  anything  which  may  keep  one 
man  from  cutting  his  brother's  throat  to-morrow  or  Friday  ?  Pray, 
pray,  help  us.  Maurice  has  given  me  the  highest  proof  of  confi- 
dence. He  has  taken  me  into  counsel,  and  we  are  to  have  meet- 
ngs  for  prayer  and  stud)-,  when  I  come  up  to  London,  and  we  are 
to  bring  out  a  new  set  of  real  '  Tracts  for  the  Times,'  addressed  to 
the  higher  orders.  Maurice  is  d  la  hauteur  des  circonstances — de- 
termined to  make  a  decisive  move.  He  says:  'Jf  the  Oxford 
tracts  did  \Yonders,  why  should  not  we  ?  Pray  for  us.  A  glorious 
future  is  opening,  and  both  Maurice  and  Ludlow  seem  to  have 
driven  away  all  my  doubts  and  sorrows,  and  I  see  the  blue  sky 
again  and  my  Father's  face  ! " 

On  Wednesday,  the  12th,  all  was  still  quiet,  and  this  placard 
which  he  had  written  was  posted  up,  in  London. 

"workmen   of   ENGLAND  ! 

*'  You  say  that  you  are  wronged.  Many  of  you  are  wronged  ; 
and  many  besides  yourselves  know  it.  Almost  all  men  who  have 
heads  and  hearts  know  it — above  all,  the  working  clergy  know  it. 
They  go  into  your  houses,  they  see  the  shameful  filth  and  dark- 
ness* in  which  you  are  forced  to  live  crowded  together  ;  they  see 
your  children  growing  up  in  ignorance  and  temptation,  for  want 
of  fit  education  ;  they  see  intelligent  and  well-read  men  among 
you,  shut  out  from  a  Freeman's  just  right  of  voting ;  and  they  see 
too  the  noble  patience  and  self-control  with  which  you  have  as  yet 
borne  these  evils.     They  see  it,  and  God  sees  it. 

"  Workmen  of  England  !  You  have  more  friends  than  you 
think  for.  Friends  who  expect  nothing  from  you,  but  who  love 
you,  because  you  are  their  brothers,  and  who  fear  God,  and  there- 
fore dare  not  neglect  you.  His  children  ;  men  who  are  drudging 
and  sacrificing  themselves  to  get  you  your  rights  ;  men  who  know 
what  your  rights  are,  better  than  you  know  yourselves,  who  are 
trying  to  get  for  you  something  nobler  than  charters  and  dozens  of 
Acts  of  Parliament — more  useful  than  this  'fifty  thousandth  share 
in  a  Talker  in  the  National  Palaver  at  Westminster 'f  can  give  you. 
\o\x  may  disbelieve  them,  insult  them — you  cannot  stop  their 
working  for  you,  beseeching  you  as  you  love  yourselves,  to  turn 
back  from  the  precipice  of  riot,  which  ends  in  the  gulf  of  universal 
distrust,  stagnation,  starvation. 

"  You  think  the  Cliarter  would  make  you  free — would  to  God  it 
would  !  The  Charter  is  not  bad  ;  if  the  t?ien  who  use  it  are  not 
bad  /     But.  will  the  Charter  make  you  free  ?     Will  it  free  you  froiii 

*  The  Window  tax  was  not  then  taken  ofT.  \  Carlyle. 


9^5  Charles  Kings  ley. 

slavery  to  ten-pound  bribes?  Slavery  to  beer  and  gin  ?  Slaverj 
to  every  spouter  who  flatters  your  self-conceit,  and  stirs  up  bitter- 
ness and  headlong  rage  in  you  ?  That,  .1  guess,  is  real  slavery ; 
to  be  a  slave  to  one's  own  stomach,  one's  own  pocket,  one's  own 
temper.  Will  the  Charter  cnxQthat?  Friends,  you  want  more 
than  Acts  of  Parliament  can  give. 

"  Englishmen  !  Saxons  !  Workers  of  the  great,  cool-headed, 
strong-handed  nation  of  England,  the  workshop  of  the  world,  the 
leader  of  freedom  for  700  years,  men  say  you  have  common-sense  ! 
then  do  not  humbug  yourselves  into  meaning  'licence,'  when  you 
cry  for  '  liberty  ; '  who  would  dare  refuse  you  freedom  ?  for  the  Al- 
mighty God,  aud  Jesus  Christ,  the  poor  Man,  who  died  for  poor 
men,  will  bring  it  about  for  you.  though  all  the  Mammonites  of  the 
earth  were  against  you.  A  nobler  day  is  dawning  for  England,  a 
day  of  freedom,  science,  industry  ! 

"  But  there  will  be  no  true  freedom  without  virtue,  no  true 
science  without  religion,  no  true  industry  without  the  fear  of  God, 
and  love  to  your  fellow-citizens. 

"  Workers  of  England,  be  wise,  and  then  you  must  be  free,  foi 
you  will  hQ  Jii  to  be  free. 

"  A  Working  Parson." 

On  the  evening  of  the  12th,  Archdeacon  Hare,  Mr.  Maurice, 
and  this  little  group  of  friends  assembled  at  Mr.  John  Parker's 
rooms,  West  Strand,  whence  he  writes  home, 

Parker's,  Strand,  April  12,  6  p.m. 

" .  .  .  I  really  cannot  go  home  this  afternoon.  I  have  spent 
it  with  Archdeacon  Hare,  and  Parker,  starting  a  new  periodical — • 
a  Penny  '  People's  Friend,'  in  which  Maurice,  Hare,  Ludlow, 
Mansfield,  and  I,  &c.  are  going  to  set  to  work,  to  supply  the  place 
of  the  defunct  'Saturday  Magazine.'  1  send  you  my  first  placard. 
Maurice  is  delighted  with  it.  I  cannot  tell  you  the  interest  which 
it  has  excited  with  every  one  who  has  seen  it.  It  brought  the 
tears  into  old  Parker's  eyes,  who  was  once  a  working  printer's  boy. 
I  have  got  already  ^2  los.  towards  bringing  out  more,  and 
Alaurice  is  subscrijjtion-hunting  for  me.  He  took  me  to  Jelf  to- 
day, the  King's  College  principal,  who  received  me  very  kindly, 
and  expressed  himself  very  anxious  to  get  me  the  professorship, 
and  will  write  to  me  as  soon  as  the  advertisements  are  out.  I  will 
be  down  at  Winchfield  to-morrow.  Kiss  the  babes  for  me.  Parkei 
begs  to  remark  that  he  has  not  been  thrown  into  the  Trafalgar 
fountain." 

On    the    13th   he   returned  to    Eversley  much  exhausted,  and 
ached  on  the  Chartist  riots  to  his  own    people    the  following 


Mr.    Hughes    Recollections.  97 

Sunday.  And  now  working  in  his  parish,  writing  for  the  "  Politics," 
preparing  his  lecture  for  Queen's  College,  and  sending  in  testimo- 
nials *  for  a  professorship  at  King's  College,  for  which  Mr,  Maurice 
hoc"  proposed  him  to  the  Council,  filled  up  every  moment  of  time. 
'J'he  various  writers  for  the  "  Politics,"  including  Mr.  Conington, 
were  continually  coming  to  Eversley  to  talk  over  their  work  and 
i-onsult  "Parson  Lot." 

As  one  of  the  few  survivors  of  those  most  intimately  associated 
with  the  author  of  "Alton  Locke,"  his  friend,  Mr.  Tom  Hughes, 
has  written  an  eloquent  preface  to  a  fresh  reprint  of  that  work  and 
of  "  Cheap  Clothes,  and  Nasty,"  from  which  he  has  kindly  allowed 
the  following  extracts  to  be  used.  Mr.  Hughes,  speaking  of  the 
distinct  period  of  Charles  Kingsley's  life  extending  from  1848  to 
1856,  says ; — 

*'.  .  .  My  first  meeting  with  him  was  in  the  autumn  of 
1847,  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Maurice,  who  had  lately  been  appointed 
Reader  of  Lincoln's  Inn.  No  parochial  work  is  attached  to  that 
post,  so  Mr.  Maurice  had  undertaken  the  charge  of  a  small  district 
in  the  parish  in  which  he  lived,  and  had  set  a  number  of  young 
men,  chiefly  students  of  the  Inns  of  Court,  who  had  been  attracted 
by  his  teaching,  to  work  in  it.  Once  a  week,  on  Monday  evenings, 
they  used  to  meet  at  his  house  for  tea,  when  their  own  work  was 
reported  upon  and  talked  over.  Suggestions  were  made  and  plans 
considered ;  and  afterwards  a  chapter  of  the  Bible  was  read  and 
discussed.  Friends  and  old  pupils  of  Mr.  Maurice's,  residing  in 
the  country,  or  in  distant  parts  of  London,  were  in  the  habit  of 
coming  occasionally  to  these  meetings,  amongst  whom  was  Charles 
Kingsley. 

"  His  poem,f  and  the  high  regari^  and  admiration  which  Mr. 
Maurice  had  for  him,  made  him  a  notable  figure  in  that  small 
society,  and  his  presence  was  always  eagerly  looked  for.  What 
impressed  me  most  about  him  when  we  first  met  was,  his  affection- 
ate deference  to  Mr.  Maurice,  and  the  vigor  and  incisiveness  of 
everything  he  said  and  did.  He  had  the  power  of  cutting  out  what 
he  meant  in  a  few  clear  words,  beyond  any  one  I  have  ever  met. 
The  next  thing  that  struck  one  was,  the  ease  with  which  he  could 
turn  from  playfulness,  or  even  broad  humor,  to  the  deepest  earnest. 
At  first  I  think  this  startled  most  j^ersons,  until  they  came  to  find 

*  These  testimonials  were  chiefly  based  on  the  historic  power  displayed  in  the 
"Saint's  Tragedy,"  and  on  his  own  high  personal  character,  from  the  Bishop 
ol  his  Diocese,  Archdeacon  Hare,  and  many  other  friends,, 

\  "  The  Saint's  Tragedy." 
7 


gS  Chai  les  Kingsh}. 

out  the  reai  deep  nature  of  the  man  ;  and  that  his  broadest  liuinoi 
had  its  root  in  a  faith  which  reahzed,  with  extraordinary  vividness, 
the  fact  that  God's  Spirit  is  actively  abroad  in  the  world,  and  that 
Christ  is  in  every  man,  and  made  him  hold  fast,  even  in  his  saddest 
moments, — and  sad  moments  were  not  infrequent  with  him, — the 
assurance  that,  in  spite  of  all  appearances,  the  world  was  going 
right,  and  would  go  right  somehow,  'Not  your  way,  or  my  wav,  but 
God's  way.'  The  contrast  of  his  humility  and  audacity,  of  his  dis- 
trust in  himself  and  confidence  in  himself,  was  one  of  those  i^uzzler 
\\hich  meet  us  daily  in  this  world  of  paradox.  But  both  qualities 
gave  him  a  peculiar  power  for  the  work  he  had  to  do  at  that  time, 
with  which  the  name  of  Parson  Lot  is  associated.  It  was  at  one 
of  these  gatherings,  towards  the  end  of  1847  or  early  in  1848,  when 
Kingsley  found  himself  in  a  minority  of  one,  that  he  said  jokingly, 
he  felt  much  as  Lot  must  have  felt  in  the  Cities  of  the  Plain,  when 
he  seemed  as  one  that  mocked  to  his  sons-in-law.  The  name 
Parson  Lot  was  then  and  there  suggested,  and  adopted  by  him,  as 
a  familiar  itom  de  plume.  He  used  it  from  1848  up  to  1856  ;  at 
first  constantly,  latterly  much  more  rarely.  But  the  name  was 
chiefly  made  famous  by  his  writings  in  'Politics  for  the  People,' 
'The  Christian  Socialist,'  and  the  'Journal  of  Association,'  three 
periodicals  which  covered  the  }ears  from '48  to  '52;  by  'Alton 
Locke,'  and  by  tracts  and  pamphlets,  of  which  the  best  known, 
'  Cheap  Clothes,  and  Nasty,'  is  now  republished. 

*'  In  order  to  understand  and  judge  the  sayings  and  writings  of 
Parson  Lot  fairly,  it  is  necessary  to  recall  the  condition  of  the 
England  of  that  day.  Through  the  winter  of  1847-8,  amidst  wide- 
spread distress,  the  cloud  of  discontent,  of  which  chartism  was  the 
most  violent  symptom,  had  been  growing  darker  and  more  menac- 
ing, while  Ireland  was  only  held  down  by  main  force.  The  break- 
ing out  of  the  revolution  on  the  Continent  in  February  increased  the 
danger.  In  March  there  were  riots  in  London,  Glasgow,  Edin 
burgh,  Liverpool,  and  other  large  towns.  On  April  7tii,  'the  Crown 
and  Government  Security  Bill,'  commonly  called  '  the  Gagging  Act,' 
was  introduced  by  the  Government,  the  first  reading  carried  by  265 
to  24,  and  the  second,  a  few  days  later,  by  452  to  35.  On  the  10th 
of  April  the  Government  had  to  fill  London  with  t/oops,  and  put 
the  Duke  of  Wellington  in  command,  who  barricaded  the  bridges 
and  Downing  street,  garrisoned  the  Bank  and  other  public  buildings, 
and  closed  the  Horse  Guards.  When  the  momentary  crisis  had 
pissed,  the  old  soldier  declared  in  the  House  of  Lords,  that  no 
grc  It  society  had  ever  suffered  as  London  had  during  the  preceding 
days,  while  the  Home  Secretary  telegrai)hed  to  all  the  chief  magis- 
trates of  he  kingdom  the  joyful  news  that  the  peace  had  been  kept 
in  Lojidon.  In  April,  the  Lord  Chancellor,  in  introducing  the 
Crown  and  (jovernment  Security  Bill  in  the  House  of  Lords,  re- 
ferred to  the  fact,  that   'meetings  were  d;iily  held,  not  only  in 


Mr.  Htighes    Recoliectioyta.  99 

London,  but  in  most  of  the  manufacturing  towns,  th<,  a  vowed  object 
of  which  was  to  array  the  people  against  the  constituted  authority  ol 
these  reahns.'  For  months  afterwards  the  Chartist  movement, 
though  ]ilainly  subsiding,  kept  the  Government  in  constant  anxiety  ; 
and  again  in  June,  1848,  the  Bank,  the  Mint,  the  Custom  House, 
and  other  public  offices  were  filled  with  troops,  and  the  Houses 
of  Parliament  were  not  only  garrisoned  but  provisioned  as  if  for  a 
siege. 

"  From  that  time,  all  fear  of  serious  danger  passed  away.  The 
•Jhartists  were  completely  discouraged,  and  their  leaders  in  prison  ; 
and  the  upper  and  middle  classes  were  recovering  rapidly  from 
the  alarm  which  had  converted  a  million  of  them  into  special  con- 
stables, and  were  beginning  to  doubt  whether  the  crisis  had  been  so 
serious  after  all,  whether  the  disaffection  had  ever  been  more  than 
skin  deep.  At  this  juncture  a  series  of  articles  appeared  in  the 
Morning  Chronicle,  on  London  labor  and  the  London  poor,  which 
startled  the  well-to-do  classes  out -of  their  -jubilant  and  scornful 
attitude,  and  disclosed  a  state  oi  things  which  made  all  fair-minded 
people  wonder,  not  that  there  had  been  violent  sj^eaking  and  some 
rioting,  but  that  the  metropolis  had  escaped  the  scenes  which  had 
lately  been  enacted  in  Paris,  Vienna,  Berlin,  and  other  Continental 
capitals. 

"It  is  only  by  an  effort  that  one  can  now  realize  the  strain  to 
which  the  nation  was  subjected  during  that  winter  and  spring,  and 
which,  of  course,  tried  every  individual  man  also,  according  to  the 
depth  and  earnestness  of  his  political  and  social  convictions  and 
sympathies.  The  group  of  men  who  were  working  under  Mr. 
Maurice  were  no  exceptions  to  the  rule.  The  work  of  teaching 
and  visiting  was  not,  indeed,  neglected,  but  the  larger  questions 
which  were  being  so  strenuously  mooted — the  points  of  the  people's 
charter,  the  right  of  public  meeting,  the  attitude  of  tl  "£  laboring 
class  to  the  other  classes,  absorbed  more  and  more  of  tneir  atten- 
tion. Kingsley  was  very  deeply  impressed  with  the  gravity  and 
danger  of  the  crisis — more  so,  I  think,  than  almost  any  of  his 
friends ;  probably  because,  as  a  country  parson,  he  was  more 
directly  in  contact  with  one  class  of  the  poor  than  any  of  them. 
How  deeply  he  felt  for  the  agricultural  poor,  how  faithfully  he  re- 
flected the  passionate  and  restless  sadness  of  the  time,  may  be 
read  in  the  pages  of  'Yeast,'  which  came  out  later  in  '  F'raser.'  As 
the  winter  months  went  on  this  sadness  increased,  and  seriously 
atfected  his  health."* 

On  the  6th  of  May  the  first  number  of  "  Politics  for  the  People" 
appeared.      Its  regular  contributors  were  nearly  all  university  men, 

*From  Mr.  Thomas  Hughes's  Preface  to  "  Alton  Locke,"  and  "  Chea| 
Qothes,  and  Nssty,"  by  Parson  Lot. 


lOO  Charles  KiJtgsley. 

clergymen  of  the  Church  of  England,  London  barristeis,  men  <rj 
science,  and  among  them  Archdeacon  Hare,  Sir  Arthur  (then  Mr.) 
Helps,  and  a  distinguished  London  physician.  A  few  letters  frorn 
workingmen,  one  signed  "  One  of  the  wicked  Chartists  of  Ken- 
nington  Common,"  were  readily  admitted.  Three  papers  on  the 
National  Gallery  and  British  Museum,  three  .etters  to  Chartists, 
snme  poetry,  and  a  tale,  "The  Nun's  Pool,"  which  was  rejected  by 
the  publisher  as  too  strong,  were  Mr.  Kingsley's  only  contribu- 
tions. His  weekly  lecture  at  Queen's  College,  with  two  sermons 
every  Sunday,  and  his  indefatigable  parish  work  (he  had  then  no 
curate),  prevented  his  doing  more  for  the  "  Politics."  It  was  a 
remarkable  though  short-lived  publication,  and  those  whose 
opinions  of  the  "  Radicals,  Socialists,  Chartists,"  who  set  it  on  foot, 
were  formed  by  the  public  press,  without  reading  the  book  itself 
would  be  surprised  at  the  loyal,  conservative,  serious  tone  of  its 
contents,  and  the  gravity,  if  not  severity,  with  which  it  attacked 
physical  force  Chartism,  monster  meetings,  and  the  demand  foi 
universal  suffrage  by  men  who  had  neither  education  nor  mora? 
self-government  to  qualify  them  for  a  vote. 

But  to  return  to  Mr.  Hughes's  Preface.  "  But  it  may  be  said, 
apart  from  his  writings,  did  not  Parson  Lot  declare  himself  a 
Chartist  in  a  public  meeting  in  London  ;  and  did  he  not  preach  m 
a  London  pulpit  a  political  sermon,*  which  brought  up  the  incum- 
bent, who  had  invited  him,  to  protest  from  the  altar  against  the 
doctrine  which  had  just  been  delivered  ? 

"Yes  !  both  statements  are  true.  Here  are  the  facts  as  to  the 
ipeech.  In  the  early  summer  of  1848,  some  of  those  who  felt  with 
Charles  Kingsley  that  the  '  People's  Charter'  had  not  had  fair  play 
or  courteous  treatment,  and  that  those  who  sigried  it  had  real  wrongs 
to  complain  of,  put  themselves  into  communication  with  the  lead- 
ers, and  met  and  talked  with  them.  At  last  it  seeined  that  the 
time  vvas  come  for  some  more  public  meeting,  and  one  was  called 
at  the  Cranbourn  Tavern,  over  which  Mr.  Maurice  jiresided.  After 
the  president's  address  several  very  bitter  speeches  followed,  and 
a  vehement  attack  was  especially  directed  against  the  Church  and 
and  clergy.  The  meeting  waxed  warm,  and  seemed  likely  to  come 
to  no  good,  when  Kingsley  arose,  folded  his  arms  across  his  chest, 
threw  his  head  back,  and  began — with  the  stanuner  which  always 
came  at  first  when  much  moved,  but  which  fixed  every  one's  atten- 
tion at  once — '  I  am  a  Church  of  England  Parson  ' — a  long  pause 
— 'and  a  Chartist;'    and  then  he  went  on  to  explain  how  far  h< 

•This  incident  belongs  to  a  later  perit«l,  1S51,  and  urill  be  given  in  its  placs 


Mr.  Hup-kes   Recollections.  loi 


i> 


thought  them  right  in  their  claim  for  a  reform  of  ParHament  ;  how 
deeply  he  sympathized  with  their  sense  of  the  injustice  of  the  law  as 
it  affected  them  ;  how  ready  he  was  to  help  in  all  ways  to  get  these 
things  set  right  ;  and  then  to  denounce  their  methods  in  very  much 
the  same  terms  as  I  have  already  quoted  from  his  letters  to  the 
Chartists.  Probably  no  one  who  was  present  ever  heard  a  speech 
which  told  more  at  the  time.  I  had  a  singular  proof  that  the  effect 
did  not  pass  away.  The  most  violent  speaker  on  that  occasion 
was  one  of  the  staff  of  the  leading  Chartist  newspaper.  I  lost  sight 
of  him  entirely  for  more  than  twenty  years,  and  saw  him  again,  a 
little  grey  shrivelled  man,  by  Kingsley's  side,  at  the  grave  of  Mr. 
Maurice,  in  the  cemetery  at  Hampstead. 

"  The  experience  of  this  meeting  encouraged  its  promoters  to 
continue  the  series  of  Tracts,  which  they  did  with  a  success  whicti 
surprised  no  one  more  than  themselves. 

"  The  fact  is,  that  Charles  Kingsley  was  born  a  fighting  man, 
and  believed  in  bold  attack.  '  No  human  power  ever  beat  back  a 
resolute  forlorn  hope,'  he  used  to  &ay  ;  '  to  be  got  rid  of,  they  muic 
be  blown  back  with  grai:)e  and  canister,  because  the  attacking  party 
have  all  the  universe  behind  them,  the  defence  only  that  small  part 
which  is  shut  up  in  their  walls.'  And  he  felt  most  strongly  at  this 
time  that  hard  fighting  was  needed.  '  It  is  a  pity,'  he  writes  to  Mr. 
Ludlow,  '  that  telling  people  what's  right  won't  make  them  do  it ; 
but  not  a  new  fact,  though  the  world  has  quite  forgotten  it,  and 
assures  you  that  the  dear  sweet  incompris  mankind  only  wants  to 
be  told  the  way  to  the  millennium  to  walk  willingly  into  it — which 
is  a  He. 

"The  memorials  of  his  many  controversies  lie  about  in  the 
periodicals  of  that  time,  and  any  one  who  cares  to  hunt  them  up 
will  be  well  repaid,  and  struck  with  the  vigor  of  the  defence,  and 
still  more  with  the  complete  change  in  public  opinion  which  has 
brought  the  England  of  to-day  clean  round  to  the  side  of  Parson 
Lot.  The  most  complete,  perhaps,  of  his  fugitive  ]5ieces  Df  this 
kind,  is  the  pamphlet  'Who  are  the  Friends  of  Order?  '  published 
by  J  VV.  Parker  &  Son,  in  answer  to  a  very  fair  and  moderate  arti- 
cle in  '  Eraser's  Magazine.'  The  Parson  there  points  out  how  he 
and  his  friends  were  '  cursed  by  demagogues  as  aristocrats,  and  by 
tories  as  democrats,  when  in  reality  they  were  neither,'  and  urges 
that  the  very  fact  of  the  continent  being  overrun  with  communist 
fanatics,  is  the  best  argument  for  preaching  association  here."  * 

To  those  who  cannot  look  back  on  the  political  storms  of 
1848-49,  his  contributions  on  the  subject  of  Art,  on  the  pictures  in 

*  Prtfact  to  "  Alton  Locke,"  by  T.  Hughes.     1876. 


J02  Charles  Kingsley. 

the  National  Gallery,  and  on  the  British  Museum  will  be  more  coa 
genial.     This  last  we  give  entire  : 

BRITISH    MUSEUM. 

"  My  friend,  Will  Willow  Wren  is  bringing  before  our  readers  the 
beauty  and  meaning  of  the  living  natural  world — the  great  Green- 
book  which  holds  '  the  open  secret,'  as  Goethe  calls  it,  seen  by  all, 
but  read  by,  alas  !  how  few.  And  I  feel  as  much  as  he,  that  nature 
is  infinitely  more  wonderful  than  the  highest  art ;  and  in  the  com- 
monest hedgeside  leaf  lies  a  mystery  and  beauty  greater  than  that 
of  the  greatest  picture,  the  noblest  statue — as  intinitely  greatei 
as  God's  work  is  infinitely  greater  than  man's.  But  to  those  who 
have  no  leisure  to  study  nature  in  the  green  fields  (and  there  are 
now-a-days  too  many  such,  though  the  time  may  come  when  all  will 
have  that  blessing),  to  such  I  say,  go  to  the  British  Musem  ;  there 
at  least,  if  you  cannot  go  to  nature's  wonders,  some  of  nature's 
wonders  are  brought  to  you. 

"The  British  Museum  is  my  glory  and  joy  ;  because  it  is  almost 
the  only  place  which  is  free  to  English  citizens  as  such — where  the 
poor  and  the  rich  may  meet  together,  and  before  those  works  of 
God's  spirit,  '  who  is  no  respecter  of  persons,'  feel  that  '  the  Lord 
is  the  maker  of  them  all.'  In  the  British  Museum  and  the  Na- 
tional Gallery  alone  the  Englishman  may  say,  '  Whatever  my  coat 
or  my  purse,  I  am  an  Englishman,  and  therefore  I  have  a  right 
here.  I  can  glory  in  these  noble  halls,  as  if  they  were  my  own 
house.' 

"  English  commerce,  the  joint  enterprise  and  industry  of  the 
poor  sailor  as  well  as  the  rich  merchant,  brought  home  these  treas- 
ures from  foreign  lands,  and  those  glorious  statues — though  it  was 
the  wealth  and  taste  of  English  noblemen  and  gentlemen  (who  in 
that  proved  themselves  truly  noble  and  gentle)  which  placed  them 
here,  yet  it  vvas  the  genius  of  English  artists — men  at  once  above 
and  below  all  ranks — men  who  have  worked  their  way  up,  not  by 
money  or  birth,  but  by  worth  and  genius,  which  taught  the  noble 
and  wealthy  the  value  of  those  antiques,  and  which  proclaimed 
Iheir  beauty  to  the  world.  The  British  Museum  is  a  truly  equaliz' 
ing  place,  in  the  deepest  and  most  spiritual  sense  ;  thei  efore  I 
love  it. 

"  And  it  gives  the  lie,  too,  to  that  common  slander,  '  that  the 
English  are  not  worthy  of  free  admission  to  valuable  ai.d  curious 
collections  because  they  have  such  a  trick  of  seeing  with  their  fin- 
gers ;  such  a  trick  of  scribbling  their  names,  of  defiling  and  disfigur- 
ing  works  of  art.  On  the  Continent  it  may  do,  but  you  cannol 
trust  the  English.' 

"This  has  been,  like  many  other  untruths,  so  often  rejieatctl, 
*hat  people  now  take  it  foi  granted ;  but  I  believe  that  it  is  iitteily 


Paper  on  the  British  Museitm.  103 

groundless,  and  I  say  so  on  the  experience  of  the  British  Mjseuni 
and  the  National  Gallery.  In  the  only  two  cases,  I  believe,  in 
which  injury  has  been  done  to  anything  in  either  place,  the  de- 
stroyers were  neither  artisans,  nor  even  poor  reckless  heathen 
street-boys,  but  persons  who  had  received  what  is  too  often  mis 
called  '  a  liberal  education.'  The  truth  is,  that  where  people  pay 
their  money  (as  they  do  in  some  great  houses)  for  the  empty  pleas- 
are  of  staring  at  luxuries  which  they  cannot  enjoy,  vulgar  curiosih 
too  often  ends  in  jealous  spite  ;  and  where  people  consider  them 
selves  imjustly  excluded  from  works  of  art,  which  ought,  as  far  as 
possible,  to  be  made  as  free  as  the  common  air,  mean  minds  will 
sometimes  avenge  their  fancied  wrongs  by  doing  wrong  themselves. 
But  national  property  will  always  be  respected,  because  all  will  be 
content,  while  they  feel  that  they  have  their  rights,  and  all  will  be 
careful  while  they  feel  that  they  have  a  share  in  the  treasure. 

"  Would  that  the  rich,  who,  not  from  selfishness  so  much  as  from 
thoughtlessness,  lock  up  the  splendid  collections  from  the  eyes  of 
all  but  a  favored  few,  would  go  to  the  British  Museum  in  Easter 
week !  Would  that  the  Deans  and  Chapters,  who  persist  (in  spite 
of  the  struggles  of  many  of  their  own  body)  in  making  penny-peep- 
shows  of  God's  houses,  built  by  public  piety  and  benevolence — of 
St.  Paul's  and  Westminster  Abbey,  which  belongs  not  to  them  at 
all,  but  to  God  and  the  people  of  England,  would  go  to  the  British 
Museum  in  Easter  week  and  see  there  hundreds  of  thousands,  of 
every  rank  and  age,  wandering  past  sculptures  and  paintings, 
which  would  be  ruined  by  a  blow — past  jewels  and  curiosities,  any 
one  of  which  would  buy  many  a  poor  soul  there  a  month's  food  and 
lodging — only  protected  by  a  pane  of  glass,  if  by  that  ;  and  then 
see  not  a  thing  disfigured — much  less  stolen.  Everywhere  order, 
care,  attention,  honest  pride  in  their  country's  wealth  and  science; 
earnest  reverence  for  the  mighty  works  of  God,  and  of  the  God 
inspired.  I  say,  the  people  of  England  prove  thenibelves  worthy 
of  free  admission  to  all  works  of  art,  and  it  is  therefore  the  duty  of 
those  who  can  to  help  them  to  that  free  admission. 

"  What  a  noble,  and  righteous,  and  truly  brotherly  plan  it  would 
b-?,  if  all  classes  would  join  to  form  a  free  National  Gallery  of  Ait^ 
and  Science,  which  might  combine  the  advantages  of  the  presen 
P'olytechnic,  Society  of  Arts,  and  British  Institution,  gratis.  Manu 
factdrers  and  men  of  science  might  send  thither  specimens  of  theii 
new  inventions.  The  rich  might  send,  for  a  few  months  in  the 
year — as  they  do  now  to  the  British  Institution — ancient  and 
modern  pictures,  and  not  only  pictures,  but  all  sorts  of  curious 
works  of  art  and  nature,  which  aro  now  hidden  in  their  drawing- 
rooms  and  libraries.  There  might  be  free  liberty  to  copy  any  ob- 
ject, on  the  copyist's  name  and  residence  being  registered.  And 
surely  artists  and  men  of  science  might  be  found,  with  enough  of 
the  spirit  of  patriotism  and  \ove,  to  explain  gratuitously  to  all  coin 


I04  Charles  Kings  ley. 

ers,  whatever  their  rank  or  class,  the  wonders  of  the  Museum.  1 
really  believe  that  if  once  the  spirit  of  brotherhood  got  abroad 
among  us  ;  if  men  once  saw  that  here  was  a  vast  means  of  educat- 
ing, and  softening  and  uniting  those  who  have  no  leisure  to  study, 
and  few  means  of  enjoyment,  except  the  gin-shop  and  Cremorne 
Gardens  ;  if  they  could  but  once  feel  that  here  was  a  project, 
equally  blessed  for  rich  and  poor,  the  money  for  it  would  be  a' 
once  forthcoming  from  many  a  rich  man,  who  is  longing  to  do  good, 
if  he  could  only  be  shown  the  way ;  and  from  many  a  poor  jour- 
neyman, who  would  gladly  contribute  his  mite  to  a  truly  natiobal 
museum,  founded  on  the  principles  of  spiritual  liberty,  equality  and 
fraternity.  All  that  is  wanted  is  the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice,  patriot- 
ism and  brotherly  love — which  God  alone  can  give — which  I  be- 
lieve He  is  giving  more  and  more  in  these  very  days. 

"  I  never  felt  this  more  strongly  than  some  six  months  ago,  as  I 
was  looking  in  at  the  windows  of  a  splendid  curiosity-shop  in 
Oxford  Street,  at  a  case  of  humming-birds.  I  was  gloating  over 
the  beauty  of  those  feathered  jewels,  and  then  wondering  what  was 
the  meaning,  what  was  the  use  of  it  all  ? — why  those  exquisite 
little  creatures  should  have  been  hidden  for  ages,  in  all  their  splen- 
dors of  ruby  and  emerald  and  gold,  in  the  South  American  forests, 
breeding  and  fluttering  and  dying,  that  some  dozen  out  of  all  those 
millions  might  be  brought  over  here  to  astonish  the  eyes  of  men. 
And  as  I  asked  myself,  why  were  all  these  boundless  varieties, 
these  treasures  of  unseen  beauty,  created  ?  my  brain  grew  dizzy 
between  pleasure  and  thought ;  and,  as  always  happens  when  one 
is  most  innocently  delighted,  '  I  turned  to  share  the  joy,'  as 
Wordsworth  says  ;  and  next  to  me  stood  a  huge,  brawny  coal- 
heaver,  in  his  shovel  hat,  and  white  stockings  and  high-lows,  gazing 
at  the  humming-birds  as  earnestly  as  myself.  As  I  turned  he 
turned,  and  I  saw  a  bright  manly  face,  with  a  broad,  soot-grimed 
forehead,  from  under  which  a  pair  of  keen  flashing  e)es  gleamed 
wondering,  smiling  sympathy  into  mine.  In  that  moment  we  felt 
ourselves  friends.  If  we  had  been  Frenchmen,  we  should,  I  sup- 
pose, have  rushed  into  each  other's  arms  and  '  fraternised '  upon 
I  he  spot.  As  we  were  a  pair  of  dumb,  awkward  Englishmen,  we 
only  gazed  a  half-minute,  staring  into  each  other's  eyes,  with  a 
vlclighlful  feeling  of  understanding  each  other,  and  then  burst  out 
both  at  once  with — ■'  Isn't  that  beautiful  ?  '  '  Well,  that  is  ! '  And 
ihen  boih  turned  back  again,  to  stare  at  our  humming-birds. 

"  I  never  felt  more  thoroughly  than  at  that  minute  (though, 
thank  God,  I  had  often  felt  it  before)  that  all  men  were  brothers  ; 
that  fraternity  and  equality  were  not  mere  political  doctrines,  bill 
blessed  God-ordained  facts  ;  that  the  party-walls  of  rank  and 
fashion  and  money  were  but  a  paper  prison  of  our  own  making, 
which  we  might  break  through  any  moment  by  a  single  hearty  and 
kindly   feeling ;    that  the   one   spirit  of  God   was  given   without 


Devotion  to  Duty.  105 

respect  of  persons  ;  that  the  beautiful  tilings  were  beautiful  alike 
to  tlie  coal  heaver  and  the  parson  ;  and  that  before  the  wondrous 
works  of  God  and  of  God's  inspired  genius,  the  rich  and  the  pool 
might  meet  together,  and  feel  that  whatever  the  coat  or  the  creed 
may  be,  '  A  man's  a  man  for  a'  that,'  and  one  Lord  the  maker  of 
them  all. 

"  For  believe  me,  my  friends,  rich  and  poor — and  I  beseech  you 
to  think  deeply  over  this  great  truth — that  men  will  never  be 
joined  in  true  brotherhood  by  mere  plans  to  give  them  a  self-inter- 
est in  common,  as  the  SociaHsts  have  tried  to  do.  No  ;  to  feel 
for  each  other,  they  must  first  feel  with  each  other.  To  have 
tKeir  sympathies  in  common,  they  must  have  not  one  object  of 
gain,  but  an  object  of  admiration  in  common  ;  to  know  that  they 
are  brothers,  they  must  feel  that  they  have  one  Father  ;  and  a  way 
to  feel  that  they  have  one  common  Father,  is  to  see  each  other 
wondering,  side  by  side,  at  His  glorious  works  ! 

"  Parson  Lot'* 

He  had  a  sore  battle  to  go  through  at  this  time  with  his  own 
heart,  and  with  those  friends  and  relations,  rehgious  and  worldly, 
who  each  and  all  from  their  own  particular  standpoint  deprecated 
the  line  he  took,  and  urged  him  to  withdraw  from  this  sympathy 
with  the  people,  which  was  likely  to  spoil  his  prospects  in  life.  In 
reference  to  this  he  writes  to  his  wife  : — - 

" .  .  .  I  v.'ill  not  be  a  liar.  I  will  speak  in  season  and  out 
of  season.  I  will  not  shun  to  declare  the  whole  counsel  of  God. 
I  will  not  take  counsel  with  flesh  and  blood,  and  flatter  myself 
into  the  dream  that  while  every  man  on  earth,  from  Maurice  back 
to  Abel,  who  ever  tried  to  testify  against  the  world,  has  been 
laughed  at,  misunderstood,  slandered,  and  that,  bitterest  of  all,  by 
the  very  people  he  loved  best,  and  understood  best,  I  alone  am  to 
escape.  My  path  is  clear,  and  I  will  follow  in  it.  He  who  died 
for  me,  and  who  gave  me  you,  shall  I  not  trust  Him  through  what- 
soever new  and  strange  paths  He  may  lead  me  ?...." 

TO    MR.    LUDLOW. 

EVE,i.SLEY,  July^  1848. 

"  I  should  have  answered  yesterday  your  noble  and  kind  letter, 
had  not  my  afternoon  been  employed  in  forcing  a  cruel,  lazy  farmer 
to  shoot  a  miserable  horse  which  was  rotting  alive  in  front  of  my 
house,  and  superintending  its  death  by  aid  of  one  of  my  own 
bullets.  What  an  awful  wonderful  thing  a  violent  death  is,  even  in 
a  dumb  beast !  I  would  not  have  lost  the  sight  for  a  great  deal. 
But  now  to  business.  You  take  a  strange  way  to  frighten  a  man  off 
from  novel-writing,  by  telling  a  man  that  he  may  become  the  greatest 


io6  Charles  Kings  ley. 

novelist  of  the  age,  If  your  good  opinion  of  n;e  vvai  true,  I  shouM 
have  less  fear  for  myself,  for  a  man  could  not  become  that  in  this? 
wonderful  era,  without  having  ideas  and  longings  which  would  force 
him  to  become  something  far  better  than  a  novelist ;  but  for  myself, 
chaotic,  piecemeal,  passionate,  'lc1,chemar'  as  I  am,  I  have  fears  as 
great  as  your  own.  I  know  the  miserable,  peevish,  lazy,  conceited, 
faithless,  prayerless  wretch  I  am,  but  I  know  this,  too,  that  One  is 
guidhig  me,  and  driving  me  when  I  will  not  be  guided,  who  will 
make  me,  and  has  made  me  go  His  way  and  do  His  work,  by  fair 
means  or  by  foul.  He  set  me  on  writing  this  'novel.'  He  has 
taught  me  things  about  the  heart  of  fast  sporting  men,  and  about 
the  condition  of  the  poor,  and  our  duty  to  them,  which  I  have  no 
doubt  He  has  taught  many  more,  but  He  has  not  set  any  one  else 
to  speak  about  them  in  the  way  in  which  I  am  speaking.  He  has 
given  me  a  certain  artistic  knack  of  utterance  (nothing  but  a 
knack),  but  He  has  done  more.  He  has  made  the  '  Word  of  the 
l^ord  like  fire  within  my  bones,'  giving  me  no  peace  till  I  have 
spoken  out.  I  know  1  may  seem  presumptuous — to  myself  most 
of  all,  because  I  know  best  the  '  liar  to  my  own  idea '  which  I  am. 
I  know  that  He  has  made  me  a  parish  priest,  and  that  that  is  the 
duty  which  lies  nearest  me,  and  that  I  may  seem  to  be  leaving  my 
calling  in  novel-writing.  But  has  He  not  taught  me  all  these  very 
things  by  my  parish-priest  life  ?  Did  He,  too,  let  me  become  a 
strong,  daring,  sporting  wild-man-of  the- woods  for  nothing  ?  Surely 
the  education  which  He  has  given  me,  so  different  from  that  which 
authors  generally  receive,  points  out  to  me  a  peculiar  calling  to 
preach  on  these  points,  from  my  own  experience,  as  it  did  to  good 
oil  Isaac  Walton,  as  it  has  done  in  our  day  to  that  truly  noble 
min.  Captain  Marryat.  Therefore  I  must  believe  'Se  tu  segui  la 
tua  Stella '  with  Dante,  that  He  who  ordained  my  star  will  not  lead 
me  into  temptation,  but  through  it,  a?.  Maurice  says.  Without 
Him  all  places  and  methods  of  life  are  equally  dangerous — with 
Him,  all  equally  safe.  Pray  for  me,  for  in  myself  I  am  weaker 
of  purpose  than  a  lost  greyhound,  lazier  than  a  dog  in  rainy 
weather. 

''  But  I  feel  intensely  the  weight  of  your  advice  to  write  no  more 
novels.  Why  should  I  ?  I  have  no  more  to  say.  When  this  is 
done  1  must  set  to  and  read.  The  symboHsm  of  nature  and  the 
;r»eaning  of  history  must  be  my  studies.  Believe  me  I  long  for 
chat  day — the  pangs  of  intellectual  labor,  the  burden  of  spiritual 
pregnancy,  are  not  pleasant  things.  A  man  cannot  write  in  th''; 
fear  of  God  without  running  against  the  devil  at  every  step.  He 
cannot  sit  down  to  speak  the  truth  without  disturbing  in  his  own 
soul  a  hornet  swarm  of  lies.  Your  hack-writer  of  no  creed,  your 
bigot  Polyphemus,  whose  one  eye  jest  helps  him  to  see  to  eat  men, 
they  do  not  understand  this  ;  their  pens  run  on  joyful  and  light  o/ 
heart.     But  no  more  talk  about  myself. 


Letter  to  his  Daughter.  107 

"  Read  a  poem  written  by  an  acquaintance  of  mine,  Clough  of 
Oxford,  'The  Bothie  of  Toper-na-Voirlich,'  an  I  tell  me  if  you  do 
not  tliink  it  a  noble  specimen  of  Pantagruelism,  and  a  hopeful  sign 
for  *  Young  Oxford,'  of  which  he  is  one  of  the  leaders " 

Having  been  appointed  Professor  of  Erglish  Literature  at 
Queen's  College,  Harley  Street,  he  gave  his  first  introductory  lecture 
on  May  13th,  and  continued  lecturing  weekly. 

In  the  summer  he  made  an  ex])edition  with  Mr.  Maurice  to 
Crowland  Abbey,  near  Peterborough,  which  deeply  impressed  him 
at  the  time,  and  formed  one  of  the  strong  features  in  his  story  o\ 
"  Hereward  "  at  a  later  date.  "We  spent  there  a  priceless  day," 
he  says;  "these  days  with  Maurice  have  taught  me  more  than  1 
can  tell.  Like  all  great  things,  he  grows  upon  one  more  and 
more."  He  wrote  several  letters  to  his  little  daughter  at  this  time, 
full  of  poetry  and  natural  history,  of  which  one  is  given. 

TO    HIS    LITTLE    GIRL   ROSE. 

DuXFORD,  Cambridge, 

"My  dear  Miss  Rose, 

"  I  am  writing  in  such  a  curious  place.  A  mill  where  they 
grind  corn  and  bones,  and  such  a  funny  little  room  in  it  full  of 
stuffed  birds.  And  there  is  a  flamingo,  such  a  funny  red  bird,  with 
long  legs  and  a  long  neck,  as  big  as  Miss  Rose,  and  sharks'  jaws, 
and  an  armadillo  all  over  great  scales,  and  now  I  will  tell  you  about 
the  stork.  He  is  called  Peter,  and  here  is  a  picture  of  him.  See 
what  long  legs  he  has,  and  a  white  body  and  black  wings,  and  he 
catches  all  the  frogs  and  snails,  and  eats  them,  and  when  he  is 
cross,  he  opens  his  long  bill,  and  makes  such  a  horrible  clattering 
like  a  rattle.  And  he  comes  to  the  window  at  tea  time,  to  eat 
bread  and  butter,  and  he  is  so  greedy,  and  he  gobbled  down  a  great 
pinch  of  snuff  out  of  Daddy's  box,^nd  he  was  so  sick,  and  we  all 
laughed  at  him,  for  being  so  foolish  and  greedy.  And  do  you  know 
there  are  such  curious  frogs  here  that  people  eat,  and  there  were 
never  any  found  in  England  before  Mr.  Thurnall  found  them,  and 
he  sent  them  to  the  British  Museum  and  the  wise  men  were  so 
pleased,  and  sent  him  leave  to  go  to  the  British  Museum  and  see 
all  the  wonderful  things  whenever  he  liked.  And  he  has  got  such 
beautiful  butterflies  in  boxes,  and  whole  cupboards  full  of  birds'  eggs, 
and  a  river  full  of  beautiful  fish,  and  Daddy  went  fishing  yesterday, 
and  caught  an  immense  trout,  very  nearly  four  pounds  weight,  and 
he  raged  and  ran  about  in  the  river  so  long,  and  Daddy  was  quite 
tiled  before  "^e  could  get  h.m  out.  And  to-day  Daddy  is  going 
back  to  Cambridge  to  get  a  letter  from  his  dear  home.  Ai.d  do 
you  know  when  Mi.  Thurnall  saw  me  drawing  the  stork,  he  gave 


io8  Charles  Kingsley. 

me  a  real  live  stork  of  my  own  to  bring  home  :o  ]\[;ss  Rose,  and  we 
will  put  him  in  the  kitchen  garden  to  run  about — what  fun  !  And 
to-morrow  Daddy  is  going  to  see  the  beautiful  pictures  at  the  Fitz- 
william  Museum,  and  the  next  day  he  is  going  to  fish  at  Shelford, 
and  the  next  day,  perhaps,  he  is  coming  home  to  his  darlings  at 
Eversley  Rectory,  for  he  does  not  know  what  to  do  without  them. 
.  .  .  .  How  happy  Miss  Rose  must  be  with  her  dear  mother. 
She  must  say,  '  thank  God  for  giving  me  such  a  darling  mother ! ' 

"  Kiss  her  for  me  and  Maurice,  and  now  good-bye,  and  I  will 
bring  home  the  stork. 

"  Your  own  Daddy." 

His  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Thomas  Cooper,  Chartist,  was  made 
this  year,  and  out  of  it  grew  a  long  correspondence,  of  which  this 
is  the  first  letter.     The  rest  will  come  at  a  later  period. 

Eversley,  Jttne  19,  1848. 

"  Ever  since  I  read  your  brilliant  poem,  '  The  Purgatory  of  Sui 
cides,'  and  its  most  affecting  preface,  I  have  been  possessed  by  a 
desire  to  thrust  myself,  at  all  risks,  into  your  acquaintance.  The 
risk  which  I  felt  keenly,  was  the  fear  that  you  might  distrust  me, 
as  a  clergyman  ;  having,  I  am  afraid,  no  great  reason  to  love  thai 
body  of  men.  Still,  I  thought,  the  poetic  spirit  ought  to  be  a  bond 
of  communion  between  us.  Shall  God  make  us  brother- poets,  as 
well  as  brother  men,  and  we  refuse  to  fraternise  ?  I  thought  also 
that  you,  if  you  have  a  poet's  heart,  as  well  as  the  poet's  brain 
wliich  you  have  manifested,  ought  to  be  more  able  than  other  men 
to  appreciate  and  sympathise  with  my  feelings  towards  '  the  work- 
ing classes.' 

"You  can  understand  why  I  held  back — from  shame — a  false 
shame,  perhaps,  lest  you  should  fancy  me  a  hypocrite.  But  my 
mind  was  made  up  when  I  found  an  attack  ii.  the  '  Common- 
wealth,' on  certain  papers  which  I  liad  published  in  the  '  Politics 
of  the  People,'  under  the  name  of  Parson  Lot.  Now  I  had  hailed 
with  cordial  pleasure  the  appearance  of  the  '  Commonwealth,'  and 
sympathised  thoroughly  with  it — and  here  was  this  very  '  Common- 
wealth' attacking  me  on  some  of  the  very  points  on  which  I  most 
agreed  with  it.  It  seemed  to  me  intolerable  to  be  so  misundor 
stood.  It  had  been  long  intolerable  to  me,  to  be  regarded  as  an 
object  of  distrust  and  aversion  by  thousands  of  my  countrymen 
my  equals  in  privilege,  and  too  often,  alas !  far  my  superiors  in 
worth,  just  because  I  was  a  clergyman,  the  very  office  which  ought 
to  have  testified  above  all  others,  for  liberty,  equality,  brotherhood, 
for  time  and  eternity.  I  felt  myself  bound,  then,  to  write  to  you, 
to  see  if  among  the  nobler  spirits  of  the  working  classes  I  could 
not  make  one  friend  who  would  understand  me.     My  ancesior? 


Prostration,   ■  iDg 

fought  in  Cromwell's  army,  and  left  ah  for  thi  sake  of  Cod  and 
liberty,  among  the  j^ilgrim  fathers,  and  here  were  men  accusing  me 
of  'mediaeval  tyranny.'  1  would  shed  the  last  drop  of  my  life 
bloo  j  for  the  social  and  political  emancipation  of  the  people  of 
England,  as  God  is  my  witness ;  and  here  are  the  very  men  for 
whom  I  would  die,  fancying  me  an  '  aristocrat.'  It  is  not  enough 
for  me  that  they  are  mistaken  in  me.  I  want  to  work  with  them. 
I  want  to  realize  my  brotherhood  with  them.  I  want  some  one 
like  yourself,  intimately  acquainted  with  the  mind  of  the  working 
classes,  to  give  me  such  an  insight  into  their  life  and  thoughts,  as 
may  enable  me  to  consecrate  my  powers  effectually  to  their  ser- 
vice. For  them  I  have  lived  for  several  years.  I  come  to  you  to 
ask  you  if  you  can  tell  me  how  to  live  more  completely  for  them. 
If  you  distrust  and  reject  my  overtures,  I  shall  not  be  astonished — 
pained  I  shall  be — and  you  must  know  as  well  as  I,  that  there  is 
no  bitterer  pain  than  to  be  called  a  rogue  because  you  are  honestei 
than  your  neighbors,  and  a  time-server,  because  you  have  intellect 
enough  to  see  both  sides  of  a  question." 

In  the  autumn  he  quite  broke  down,  while  writing  "  Yeast,"  as 
a  series  of  papers  in  "  Eraser's  Magazine."  He  had  not  recovered 
the  excitement  of  the  Chartist  movement,  and  having  at  that  time 
no  curate,  every  hour  was  occupied  with  sermon  writing,  cottage 
visiting,  and  he  was  forced  to  write  "Yeast"  at  night  when  the 
da/s  work  was  over,  and  the  house  still.  This  was  too  much  for 
brain  and  nerves,  and  one  Sunday  evening,  after  his  two  services 
had  been  got  through  with  difficulty,  he  fell  asleep,  slept  late  into 
the  next  day,  and  awoke  so  exhausted  that  his  medical  man  was 
alarmed  at  his  weakness,  ordered  complete  rest  and  change  to 
Bournemouth.  From  thence,  after  a  month's  rest,  he  returned  to 
Eversley  only  to  sink  again. 

rO   AN   OXFORD    FRIEND. 

Eversley,  December,  1848. 

"I  have  delayed  answering  )'-our  letter  because  I  did  not  wid» 
to  speak  in  a  hurry  on  a  subject  so  important  to  you.     I  am  afraij 

ihat 's  report  of  my  opinion  has  pained  you — really  it  ought  not; 

[  spcke  only  as  a  friend  and  in  sincerity.  I  cannot  advise  you  to 
publish  the  poems  of  yours  which  I  have  seen — at  least  for  some 
ynars,  and  I  will  give  you  my  reasons 

"First,  you  write  too  easily;  that  same  imp  'facility'  must  not 
be  let  to  ruin  you,  as  it  helped  tc  ruin  Theodore  Hook.  You 
must  never  put  two  words  or  lines  where  one  will  do  ;  the  age  \\ 
too  busy  and  hurried  to  stand  it.     Again,  you  want  to  see  a  greaf 


no  Charles  Kings  ley. 

deal  more,  and  study  more — that  is  the  only  wa}'  t  j  have  mated 
als.  Poets  cannot  create  till  they  have  learnt  to  recombine.  The 
study  of  man  and  nature  ;  the  study  of  poets  and  fiction  writers  ol 
all  schools  is  necessary.  And,  believe  me,  you  can  never  write 
like  Byron,  or  anybody  else  worth  hearing,  unless  by  reading  and 
usinf  poetry  of  a  very  different  school  from  his.  The  early  dramat- 
ists, Shakespeare  above  all ;  and  not  less  the  two  schools  which  made 
Shakespeare  ;  the  Northern  ballad  literature  ;  nay  even,  I  find  the 
Norse  myths.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Romance  literature 
nmst  be  known,  to  acquire  that  objective  power  of  embodying 
thoughts,  without  which  poetry  degenerates  into  the  mere  intellec- 
tual reflective,  and  thence  into  the  metrical-prose  didactic.  Read, 
mark,  and  learn,  and  do  not  write.  I  never  wrote  five  hundred 
lines  in  my  life  before  the  'Saint's  Tragedy,'  but  from  my  childhood 
I  had  worked  at  poetry  from  Southej^s  '  Thalaba,'  Ariosto,  Spen- 
ser, and  the  '  Old  Ballads,'  through  almost  every  school,  classic 
and  modern,  except  the  Spanish,  and,  alas  !  a  very  little  German, 
and  that  by  translations.  And  I  have  not  read  half  enough.  I 
have  been  studying  all  physical  sciences  which  deal  with  phe- 
nomena ;  I  have  been  watching  nature  in  every  mood  ;  I  have 
been  poring  over  sculptures  and  paintings  since  I  was  a  little  boy 
— and  all  I  can  say  is,  I  do  not  know  half  enough  to  be  a  poet  in 
the  nineteenth  century,  and  have  cut  the  Muse  pro  tempore. 

"  Again,  you  have  an  infinity  to  learn  about  rhythm  and  metre, 
and  about  the  coloring  and  chiaroscuro  of  poetry  ;  how  to  break 
up  your  masses,  and  how  to  make  masses ;  high  lights  and  shad- 
ows; major  and  minor  keys  of  metre;  rich  coloring  alternating 
with  delicate.  All  these  things  have  to  be  learnt,  if  you  wish  to 
avoid  monotony,  to  arrest  the  interest,  to  gain  the  cardinal  secret 
of  giving  '  continual  surprise  in  expectation,'  and  '  expectation  in 
surprise.' 

"Now  don't  be  angry  with  me.  I  think  you  have  a  poetic 
faculty  in  you,  from  the  mere  fact  of  your  having  been  always 
lusting  to  get  your  thoughts  into  poetry  ;  and  because  1  think 
you  have  one,  therefore  I  don't  want  you  to  publish,  or  even 
write,  till  you  have  learnt  enough  really  to  enable  you  to  embody 
)0ur  thoughts.  They  are  good  and  vigorous,  and  profitable  to 
the  age  ;  but  they  are  as  yet  too  bare-backed — you  must  go  clothes 
hunting  for  the  poor  naked  babbies. 

Let  me  hear  from  you  again,  for  I  am  very  much  interested  in 
all  you  do,  and  your  true  friend  and  well  wisher." 

After  a  second  prostration  of  strength,  he  was  advised  to  give 
up  all  work  entirely,  and  the  winter  and  spring  were  spent  va 
N^orth  Devon,  at  llfracombe  and  Lj^nmouth. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

1849. 

Aged  30. 

Wiater  in  Devonshire — Ilfracombe — Decides  on  t.king  Pjp;ls — Corre  ponJenci*— 
Visit  to  London — Social  Questions — Fever  at  Eversley — Renewed  Illness- 
Returns  to  Devonshire — Cholera  in  England — Sanitary  Work — Itermondsej 
—Letter  from  Mr.  C.  K.  Paul. 

This  year  began  in  ill-health  at  Ilfracombe,  where  Mr.  Maurice 
with  other  friends  came  to  visit  him,  and  went  away  depressed  at 
seeing  the  utter  exhaustion,  mental  and  bodily,  of  one  who  had  been 
the  life  and  soul  of  their  band  of  workers  in  1848.  He  was  able  to 
do  nothing  for  months — riding,  walking,  and  even  conversation  were 
too  much  for  him  ;  and  wandering  on  the  sea-shore,  collecting  shells 
and  zoophytes,  with  his  wife  and  children,  was  all  the  exertion 
that  he  could  bear,  while  dreaming  over  "  The  Autobiography  of  a 
Cockney  Poet,"  which  in  the  autumn  was  to  develop  into  "Alton 
Locke."  With  much  difficulty  he  got  through  an  article  on  Mrs. 
Jamieson's  Sacred  and  Legendary  Art"  for  "  Fraser's  Magazine," 
ivhich  he  had  promised.*  Mr.  Froude  came  to  him  from  Oxford  in 
February,  and  then  and  there  made  acquaintance  with  his  future 
wife,  Mrs.  Kingsley's  sister,  who  was  also  at  ;«:lfracombe.  There 
are  few  letters  to  mark  the  winter  and  spring  of  1849,  ^""^  fewer 
poems. 

During   a   solitary  ride    on   Morte   Sands,  he  composed    sorrie 
elegiacs,  of  which  he  speaks  in  the  following  letter  : 

TO  J.  MALCOLM  LUDLOW,  ESQ. 

Ilfracombe,  February^  1849. 

'*....     I  send  you  the  enclosed  lines  as  some  proof  thai 

xS.\t  exquisite  elegiac  metre  suits  our  English  language  (as  indeed 

everything  beautiful  does).     They  are  but  a  fragment.     You  were 

the  cause  of  their  not  being  finished  ;  for  your  kindness  swept  away 

*  Since  published  in  his  Miscellanies, 


112  Charles  Kingsley, 

the  e>il  spirit  of  despondency,  and  I  hold  it  a  sin  to  turn  on  the 
Werterian  tap,  of  mahce  prepense.  If  they  are  worth  finishing,  I 
shall  have  sorrows  enough  ere  I  die,  no  doubt,  to  put  nie  in  the 
proper  vein  for  them  again.  I  send  them  off  to  escape  the:  torment 
of  continually  fidgeting  and  polishing  at  them  ;  for  whatever  I  may 
say  in  defence  of  my  own  case,  I  dare  not  let  anything  go  forth, 
except  as  highly  finished  as  I  can  make  it.  Show  them  to  the  'oak 
of  the  mountain,'  the  Master  (Mr.  Maurice),  he  will  recognize  the 
place,  and  the  feeling  of  much  of  them,  and  ask  him  whether 
with  a  palinode,  setting  forth  how  out  of  winter  must  come  spring 
out  of  death  life,  they  would  not  be  tolerably  true 

Wearily  stretches  the  land  to  the  surge,  and  the  surge  to  the  cloudlar.d  ; 

Wearily  onward  I  ride,  watching  the  water  alone. 

Not  as  of  old,  like  Homeric  Achilles,  Kvfitl  yaiuv. 

Joyous  knight  errant  of  God,  thirsting  for  labor  and  strife. 

No  more  on  magical  steed  borne  free  through  the  regions  of  ether, 

But,  like  the  hack  which  I  ride,  selling  my  sinew  for  gold. 

Fruit-bearing  autumn  is  gone  ;  let  the  sad,  quiet  winter  hang  o'er  me — 

What  were  the  spring  to  a  soul  laden  with  sorrow  and  shame? 

Blossoms  would  fret  me  with  beauty  ;  my  heart  has  no  time  to  be-praise  them  , 

Grey  rock,  bough,  surge,  cloud,  waken  no  yearning  within. 

Sing  not,  thou  skylark  above  !     Even  angels  pass  hushed  by  the  weeper. 

Scream  on,  ye  sea  fowl !  my  heart  echoes  your  desolate  cry. 

Sweep  the  dry  sand  on,  thou  wild  wind,  to  drift  o'er  the  shell  and  the  sea-weed  j 

Sea- weed  and  shell,  like  my  dreams,  swept  down  the  pitiless  tide. 

Just  is  the  wave  which  uptore  us ;  'tis  Nature's  own  law  which  condemns  us  * 

Woe  to  the  weak  who,  in  pride,  build  on  the  faith  of  the  sand  ! 

Joy  to  the  oak  of  the  mountain ;  he  trusts  to  the  might  of  the  rock-clefts; 

Deeply  he  mines,  and  in  peace  feeds  on  the  wealth  of  the  stone. 


**..,.  I  have  hope  also  of  the  book  which  I  am  \vritin{;, 
the  Autobiography  of  a  Cockney  Poet,  which  has  revealed  itself  to 
me  so  rapidly  and  methodically,  that  I  feel  it  comes  down  frora 
above,  and  that  only  my  folly  can  spoil  it — which  1  pray  against 
daily. 

"  ....  I  never  felt  the  reality  and  blessing  of  that  church 
confession  and  absolution  more  than  I  did  in  this  morning's  ser- 
vice.    Thank  you  for  all  and  every  hint 

"Tell  Charles  Mansfield  I  have  found  to-day  another  huge 
comatula,  and  bottled  him  with  his  legs,  by  great  dodging.  I  am 
always  finding  something  fresh 

"  Best  love  to  all  our  friends.  Poor  Maurice  !  But  a  little  per- 
secution is  a  blessing  to  any  man.  Still  it  does  make  one  sick  to 
hear  these  quill-driving  cowards  and  bigots  attacking  him." 


Taking  Pupils.    .  113 

The  expenses  of  illness,  and  his  inability  to  meet  them  by  Avriting, 
obliged  him  now  to  think  of  some  other  means,  and  he  consulted 
A[r.  Maurice  about  taking  pupils.  Mr.  Maurice  wrote  at  once  to 
Professor  Thompson,  now  Master  of  Trinity,  Cambridge  : 

"  Kingsley,  who,  1  think,  is  known  to  you,  has  been  disabled  foi 
S'jnie  time,  and  has  been  obliged  to  leave  his  living.  He  is  much 
tetter,  and  wishes  very  much  for  a  pupil  to  prepare  for  orders  ot 
even  for  college.  He  is  now  at  Ilfracombe.  At  Eversley  he  would 
have  accommodation  in  a  very  pleasant  house.  I  do  not  know  a 
man  more  fitted  for  the  work — scarcely  any  one  equally  fitted.  He  is 
a  good,  accurate,  and  enthusiastic  scholar,  full  of  knowledge  of  all 
things  about  him,  and  delight  in  them  ;  and  more  likely  to  give  a 
young  man  of  the  day  a  good  direction  in  divinity,  meeting  his 
difficulties  and  dealing  honestly  with  them,  than  any  person  I  have 
fallen  in  with.  His  conversation  is  full  of  interest  even  when  he  is 
ill ;  when  he  is  well  he  is  the  freshest,  freest  hearted  man  in  England. 
His  home  is  altogether  most  pleasant,  and  those  who 
dwell  in  it.     If  you  can  give  him  help,  I  shall  be  most  grateful  to 

"  Yours  ever  truly, 

"  F.  D.  Maurice." 

He  gives  his  own  plan  of  teaching,  or  rather  training  a  pupil,  in 
a  characteristic  letter  to  Mrs.  Scott,  wife  of  Rev.  A.  J.  Scott,  after- 
•♦Yards  Principal  of  Owens  College,  Manchester  : 

"  Will  you  excuse  my  burdening  you  with  another  word  about 
pupils  ?....!  am  not  going  to  talk  of  what  I  can  teach  ; 
but  what  I  should    try  to    teach,    would   be    principally  physical 
science,  history,  English  literature,  and  modern  languages.      In  my 
eyes  the  question  is  not  what  to  teach,  but  how  to  educate  ;  b^w 
to  train  not  scholars,  but  men  ;  bold,  energetic,  methodic,  libeidl 
minded,  magnanimous.     If  I  can  succeed  in  doing  that,  I  shall  d( 
what  no  salary  can  repay — and  what  is  not  generally  done,  or  ex 
pt^cted  to  be  done,  by  private  tutors " 

On  the  receipt  of  this  letter,  Mr.  Scott  remarked,  "That  is  what 
is  wanted,  and  it  is  what  Charles  Kingsley  will  do,"  Notwith- 
standing the  efforts  of  his  friends,  the  pupils  were  not  forthcoming. 
His  writings  had  caused  a  strong  prejudice  against  him  ;  and  it  was 
n»)t  till  the  following  year  that  he  succeeded.  The  long  waiting 
was  repaid  when  the  pupil  f;ame,  and  the  labor,  which  throughout 
was  a  labor  of  love,  was  more  than  repaid,  being  spent  on  one  who 
8 


114  Charles  Kings  ley. 

realised  the  tiitor's  ideal  in  after  life.  That  pupil  will  speak  foi  hira 
self  in  anotlier  chapter. 

It  had  been  a  great  sorrow  to  him  to  give  up  his  work  at  Queen'i 
College,  and  he  was  never  able  to  resume  it.  Besides  two  intro- 
ductory lectures  on  literature  and  composition,  instinct  with  genius. 
now  out  of  print,  he  only  delivered  one  course  on  Early  English 
Literature.     The  Rev.  Alfred  Strettell  took  his  place. 

Front  Clovelly,  where  he  went  with  his  wife's  sister  and  Mr. 
Froude,  he  writes  home  : 

"Only  a  few  lines,  for  the  post  starts  before  breakfast.  We  got 
her?  all  safe.  C.  enjoyed  herself  by  l3'ing  in  misery  at  the  bottom 
of  the  boat  all  the  way.  ...  1  cannot  believe  my  eyes  :  the 
same  place,  the  pavement,  the  same  dear  old  smells,  the  dear  old 
handsome  loving  faces  again.  It  is  as  if  I  was  a  little  boy  again, 
or  the  place  liad  stood  still  while  all  the  world  had  been  rushing 
and  rumbling  on  past  it;  and  then  I  suddenly  recollect  your  face, 
and  those  two  ducks  on  the  pier ;  and  it  is  no  dream  ;  this  is  the 
dream,  and  I  am  your  husband  ;  what  have  I  not  to  thank  God 
for  ?  I  have  been  thanking  Him  ;  but  where  can  I  stop  ?  We 
talk  of  sailing  home  again,  as  cheapest  and  pleasantest ;  most 
probably  Friday  or  Saturday.  To-day-  I  lionize  Charlotte  over 
everything.     Kiss  the  children  for  me." 

The  following  letter,  addressed  to  a  young  man  going  over  to 
Rome,  though  incomplete,  is  too  valuable  to  omit.  Several  pages 
have  been  lost,  which  will  account  for  any  want  of  sequence. 

Harley  House,  Cliftox,  May  ii,  1849. 
"  My  Dear  Sir,— 

"  I  have  just  heard  from  Charles  Mansfield,  to  my  inexpressi- 
ble grief,  that  you  are  inclined  to  join  the  Roman  Communion ; 
and  at  the  risk  of  being  called  impertinent,  I  cannot  but  write  my 
whole  heart  to  you. 

"  What  I  say  may  be  Tcapa  rov  Aoydi',  after  all  ;  if  so,  pray  writ* 
and  let  me  know  what  your  real  reasons  are  for  such  a  step.  I 
think,  as  one  Christian  man  writing  to  another,  I  may  dare  to  en- 
treat this  of  you.  For  believe  me  I  am  no  bigot.  I  shall  not 
trouble  you  with  denunciations  about  the  'scarlet  woman'  or  the 
'little  horn.'  I  cannot  but  regard  with  awe,  at  least,  if  not  rever- 
ence, a  form  of  faith  which  God  thinks  good  enough  still  for  one 
half  (though  it  be  the  more  brutal,  profligate,  and  helpless  half)  of 
Europe.  Believe  me,  I  can  sympathise  with  you.  I  have  been 
through  it ;  I  have  longed  for  Rome,  and  boldly  faced  the  conse 


The   Church  of  Rome.  115 

quences  of  joining  Rome  ;  and  though  I  now  have,  tl  r  nk  God, 
cast  all  wish  of  change  behind  me  years  ago,  as  a  great  lyii.g  devil's 
temptation,  yet  I  still  long  as  ardently  as  ever  to  see  in  the  Church 
of  England  much  which  only  now  exists,  alas !  in  the  Church  of 
Rome.  Can  I  not  feel  for  you  ?  Do  I  not  long  for  a  visible,  one, 
organized  Church  ?  Do  1  not  shudder  at  the  ghastly  dulness  of 
our  services  ?  Do  I  not  pray  that  I  may  see  the  day  when  the 
art  and  poetry  of  the  nineteenth  century  shall  be  again  among  us 
turned  to  their  only  true  destination — the  worship  of  God  ?  Have 
I  shed  no  bitter,  bitter  tears  of  shame  and  indignation  in  cathedral 
aisles,  and  ruined  abbeys,  and  groaned  aloud  '  Ichabod,  Ichabod, 
the  glory  is  departed,'  etc." 

[Here  some  pages  are  lost.] 

"  Can  you  not  commit  the  saving  of  your  soul  to  Him  that  made 
your  soul  ?  I  think  it  will  be  in  good  keeping,  unless  you  take  it 
out  of  His  hands,  by  running  off  where  he  has  not  put  you.  Did 
/ou  never  read  how  '  He  that  saveth  his  soul  shall  lose  it.'  Be- 
ware. 

"  Had  )^ou  been  born  an  Italian  Romanist  I  would  have  said  to 
you.  Don't  leave  Rome;  stay  where  you  are  and  try  to  mend  the 
Church  of  your  fathers ;  if  it  casts  you  out,  the  sin  be  on  its  own 
head  ;  and  so  I  say  to  you.  Do  you  want  to  know  God's  will 
about  you  ?  What  plainer  signs  of  it,  than  the  fact  that  he  has 
made  you,  and  educated  you  as  a  Protestant  Englishman.  Here, 
believe  it — believe  the  providentiam,  '  Dei  in  rebus  revelatam.'-— 
Here  He  intends  you  to  work,  and  to  do  the  duty  which  lies  near- 
est. Hold  what  doctrines  you  will,  but  do  not  take  yourself  out 
of  communion  with  your  countrymen,  to  bind  yourself  to  a  sys- 
tem which  is  utterly  foreign  to  us  and  our  thoughts,  and  only  by 
casting  off  which,  have  we  risen  to  be  the  most  mighty,  and,  with  all 
our  sins,  perhaps  the  most  righteous  and  pure  of  nations  (a  fact 
which  the  Jesuits  do  not  deny).  I  assure  you  that  they  tell  their 
converts  that  the  reason  why  Protestant  England  is  allowed  to  be 
so  much  more  righteous  than  the  Romish  nations  is — to  try  the 
faith  of  the  elect !  !  You  will  surely  be  above  listening  to  such 
anile  sophistry  ! 

"But  stiU,  you  think,  'you  may  be  holier  there  than  here.' 
Ah,  sir,  '  coelum,  non  animum,  mutant,  qui  trans  mare  currunt.* 
Ultramontanism  will  be  a  new  system  ;  but  not,  I  think,  a  new 
character.  Certain  outward  acts,  and  certain  inward  feelings, 
which  are  all  very  nice,  and  right,  and  pleasant,  will  be  made  easier 
for  you  there  than  here  :  you  will  live  so  charmingly  by  rule  and 
measure  ;  not  a  moment  in  the  day  but  will  be  allotted  out  for  you, 
with  its  appropriate  acts  of  devotion.  True,  now  you  are  a  man, 
standing  face  to  face  with  God  ;  then  you  will  (believe  one  who 
knows)  find  yourself  a  machine,  face  to  face,  not  with  Gi-wJ,  but 
ftith  a  priest  and  a  system,  and  hosts  of  inferior  deities,  o'  which 


1 1 6  Charles  Kings  ley. 

hereafter.  Oh  !  sir,  you,  a  free-born  Englishman,  brought  up  in 
that  liberty  for  -which  your  forefathers  died  on  scaffolds  and  in  bat« 
tle-fields — that  liberty  which  begot  a  Shakspeare,  a  Raleigh,  a  Ba- 
con, Milton,  Newton,  Faraday,  13rooke — will  you  barter  away  thai 
inestimable  gift  because  Italian  pedants,  who  know  nothing  of 
human  nature  but  from  the  books  of  prurient  celibates,  tell  you  that 
they  have  got  a  surer  'dodge  '  for  saving  your  soul  than  those  have, 
among  whom  God's  will,  not  your  own,  has  begotten  and  educated 
you  ?  But  you  '  will  be  able  to  rise  to  a  greater  holiness  there.' 
Holiness,  sir  ?  Devoutness,  you  mean.  The  '  Avill  of  God '  is 
your  holiness  already,  and  you  may  trust  Him  to  perfect  His  will 
in  you  here — for  here  He  has  put  you — if  by  holiness  you  mean 
godliness  and  manliness,  justice  and  mercy,  honesty  and  usefulness. 
But  if  by  holiness  you  mean  '  saintliness,'  I  quite  agree  that  Rome 
is  the  place  to  get  that,  and  a  poor  pitiful  thing  it  is  when  it  is  got 
— not  God's  ideal  of  a  man,  but  an  effeminate  shaveling's  ideal. 
Look  at  St.  Francis  de  Sales,  or  St.  Vincent  de  Paul's  face,  and  then 
say,  does  not  your  English  spirit  loathe  to  see  t/iat?  God  made 
man  in  His  image,  not  in  an  imaginary  Virgin  Mary's  image.  And 
do  not  fancy  that  you  will  really  get  any  spiritual  gain  by  going 
over.  The  very  devotional  system  which  will  educe  and  develop 
the  souls  of  people  born  and  bred  up  under  it,  and  cast,  constitu- 
tionally and  by  hereditary  associations,  into  its  mould,  will  only 
prove  a  dead  leaden  crushing  weight  on  an  Englishman,  who  has, 
as  you  have,  tasted  from  his  boyhood  the  liberty  of  the  Spirit  of 
God.  You  will  wake,  my  dear  brother,  you  will  wake,  not  alto- 
gether, but  just  enougii  to  find  yourself  not  believing  in  Romish 
doctrines  about  saints  and  virgins,  absolutions  and  indulgences, 
but  only  believing  in  believing  them — an  awful  and  infinite  differ- 
ence, on  which  I  beseech  you  earnestly  to  meditate.  You  wi.I 
find  yourself  crushing  the  voice  of  conscience,  common-sense,  and 
humanity — I  mean  the  voice  of  God  within  you,  in  order  to  swal- 
low down  things  at  which  your  gorge  rises  in  disgust.  You  will 
find  the  Romish  practice  as  different  from  the  Romish  ideal  as  the 
English  is  from  the  English  ideal,  and  you  will  find  amid  all  your 
discontents  and  doubts,  that  the  habits  of  religious  excitement, 
and  of  leaning  on  ])riests  whom  you  will  neither  revere  nor  trust 
tor  themselves,  will  have  enchained  you  like  the  habits  of  a  drunk- 
ard or  an  opium-eater,  so  that  you  must  go  back  again  and  again 
for  self-forgetfulness  to  the  spiritual  laudanum-bottle,  which  gives 
now  no  more  pleasant  dreams,  but  only  painful  heartache,  and 
miserable  depression  afterwards.  I  know  what  I  have  seen  and 
heard  from  eye-witnesses. 

"  I  know  you  may  answer — This  may  be  all  very  fine,  but  if 
Rome  be  the  only  true  Church,  thither  I  must  go,  loss  or  gain. 
Most  true.  But  take  care  how  you  get  at  this  conviction  that  Rome 
is  the  true  Church;  if  by  a  process  of  the  logical  understanding 


The   Charticts.  .  117 

that  is  most  unfair,  foi  you  have  to  renounce  the  conch  siLns  of 
the  unrlerstanding  when  you  go  to  Rome.  How  then  can  you  iel 
it  lead  you,  to  a  system  which  asserts  in  limine  that  it  has  no  right 
to  U^ad  you  any  where  at  aU  ? 

"  But  I  must  defer  this  question,  and  also  that  of  Romish 
aesthetics,  to  another  letter.  I  make  no  apology  for  plain  speak- 
ing ;  these  are  times  in  which  we  must  be  open  with  each  other. 
And  I  was  greatly  attracted  by  the  little  1  saw  of  you.  I  know 
there  is  a  sympathy  between  us  ;  and  having  passed  through  these 
♦■emptations  in  my  own  person,  God  would  judge  me  if  I  did  not 
spea-k  what  He  has  revealed  to  me  in  bitter  struggles.  One  word 
more.  Pray,  answer  this,  and  pray  wait.  Never  take  so  impor- 
tant a  step  without  at  least  six  months'  deliberate  waiting,  not  till, 
but  after  your  mind  is  made  up.  Five-and  twenty  years  God  has 
let  you  remain  a  Protestant.  Even  if  you  were  wrong  in  being 
one,  He  will  surely  pardon  your  remaining  one  six  months  longer, 
in  a  world  where  the  roads  of  error  are  so  many  and  broad  that  a 
man  may  need  to  look  hard  to  find  the  narrow  way. 

Before  resuming  work  again  at  Eversley,  he  went  to  London, 
and  took  up  the  old  thread  by  attending  a  Chartist  meeting  on  the 
3d  of  June,  and  on  the  19th  a  workmen's  meeting  on  the  Land 
Colonization  question,  and  from  Chelsea  he  writes  home  : 

" ....  I  could  not  write  yesterday,  being  kept  by  a  poor 
boy  who  had  fallen  off  a  truck  at  Croydon  and  smashed  himself, 
whom  I  escorted  to  Guy's  Hospital.  1  have  spent  the  whole  day 
running  up  and  down  London  on  business.  I  breakfasted  with 
Bunsen,  such  a  divine-looking  man,  and  so  kind.  I  have  worlds 
to  tell  you.  Met  F.  Newman  last  night,  and  breakfast  with  him 
to-morrow.  I  had  a  long  and  interesting  talk  with  Froude  last 
night 

"  Monday. — I  spent  yesterday  with  Ludlow,  and  went  with  him 
to  Dr.  Thorpe's,  and  to  Lincoln' s-inn  Chapel  in  the  afternoon — a 
noble  sight. — Maurice's  head  looked  like  some  great,  awful  Gior- 
gione  portrait  in  the  pulpit,  but  oh,  so  worn,  and  the  face  worked 
so  at  certain  passages  of  the  sermon. 

"  Long  and  most  interesting  talk  with  Mons.  Chevallier  this 
."norning.  London  is  perfectly  horrible.  To  you  alone  I  look  for 
help  and  advice — God  and  you, — else  I  think  at  times  I  should 

cry  myself  to  death The  women's  shoe-makers  are  not 

set  up  yet.  My  sermons  ('  Village  Sermons')  are  being  lent  from 
man  to  man,  among  the  South  I  ondon  Chartists,  at  such  a  pace 
that  Cooper  can't  get  them  back  again.  And  the  Manchest""! 
men  stole  his  copy  of  the  Saint's  Tragedy 


ii8  Charles  Kings  ley. 

"  I  have  jest  been  to  see  Carlyle." 

(Later)  "  On  Friday  I  dined  at  Maurice's.  Met  Mrs.  Augustus 
Hare,  and  a  brother  of  the  Archdeacon's,  an  officer  in  the  Prussian 
army,  also  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Scott,  who  were  very  kind  indeed.  1 
•ook  George  to  a  soiree  at  Parker's,  and  introduced  him  to  all  the 
set  there.  On  Saturday  we  dined  at  Ludlow's,  met  dear  Charles 
Mansfield  and  a  Frenchman,  now  being  tried  in  Paris  for  the  June 
Row.  a  complete  Red  Republican  and  Fourierist  ;  he  says  nothing 
but  Christianity  can  save  France  or  the  world.  I  had  an  intensely 
interesting  talk  with  him.  In  the  evening  the  Campbells,  Shorter 
f.ae  Chartist,  and  Dr.  Walsh,  came  in,  and  we  had  a  glorious 
evening " 

yune  12,  1S49  (My  Birthday). 

"  Last  night  will  never  be  forgotten  by  many,  many  men. 
Maurice  was — I  cannot  describe  it.  Chartists  told  me  this  morn- 
ing that  many  were  aftected  even  to  tears.  The  man  was  inspired 
— gigantic.  No  one  commented  on  vvhat  he  said.  He  stunned 
us !     I  will  tell  you  all  when  1  can  collect  myself.     .... 

"  This  morning  I  breakfasted  with  Dr.  Guy,  and  went  with  him 

Tailor   hunting,    very   satisfactory  as   yet Yesterday 

afternoon  with  Professor  Owen  at  the  College  of  Surgeons,  where  I 
saw  unspeakable  things " 


He  now  settled  at  Eversley  again,  and  threw  himself  into  the 
full  tide  of  parish  work  with  the  loving  help  of  the  Rev.  H.  Percy 
Smith,  of  Baliol,  who  was  ordained  to  the  curacy  of  Eversley. 
The  season  was  unhealthy  ;  cholera  was  brooding  over  England, 
and  a  bad  low  fever  broke  out  at  Eversley,  which  gave  the  rector 
incessant  work  and  anxiety.  The  parishioners  got  frightened.  It 
was  difficult  to  get  nurses  for  the  sick,  so  that  he  was  with  them  at 
all  liours  ;  and  after  sitting  up  a  whole  night  with  one  bad  case,  a 
laborers  wife,  the  mother  of  a  large  family,  that  he  might  himself 
give  the  nourishment  every  half-hour  on  which  the  poor  woman's 
life  depended,  he  once  more  completely  broke  down,  and  London 
physicians  advised  his  taking  a  sea  voyage.  A  trip  to  America 
and  back  was  proposed  ;  but  he  dreaded  the  loneliness,  and  his 
parents  being  strongly  averse  to  the  plan,  he  went  again  to 
Devonshire,  ho]:)ing  that  a  month's  quiet  and  idleness  would  re- 
store him. 

From  thence  h^.  writes  home. 


Fishing.  iig 

ToRRiDGE  Moors,  West  Country  Inn. 

**  I  have  been  fisl.ing  the  Torridge  today.  Caught  i^  dozen- 
very  bright  sun,  which  was  against  me.  To-morrow  I  return  to 
Clovelly.  I  have  got  a  companion  here  who  is  fishing  and  collect- 
ing his  rents.  Gentleman-like  man,  and  friend  of  Hawker's  the 
West  Country  Poet.  Tennyson  was  down  here  last  year,  anc 
Wiilked  in  on  Hawker  to  collect  Arthur  legends." 

Clovelly,  Aug.  16,  1849, 

"  I  have  read  Rabelais  right  through,  and  learnt  immensely  from 
him.  I  have  been  reading  P.  Leroux's  book  on  Christianity  and 
Democracy,  and  am  now  reading  Ruskin.     The  weather  has  been 

too  stormy  for  trawling,  but  I  have  got  a  few  nice  shells 

My  landlady  is  an  extraordinary  woman,  a  face  and  figure  as  of  a 
queen,  but  all  thought,  sensibility  and  excitement  ;  a  great  '  devote ' 
and  a  true  Christian  ;  between  grief  and  religion  she  has  learnt  a 
blessed  lesson.  Old  Wim.  potters  in,  like  an  old  grey-headed  New- 
foundland dog,  about  three  times  a  day  to  look  after  me  in  all  sorts 
of  kind  and  unnecessary  ways.  I  have  been  pestered  with  letter 
after  letter  asking  me  to  join  this  new  popular  Church  paper,  bu) 
have  of  course  fought  off.  I  am  convinced  at  moments  that,  aftei 
all,  the  best  place  for  me  is  at  home " 

"Saturday  I  start.  I  am  quite  in  spirits  at  the  notion  of  the 
Moor.  It  will  give  me  continual  excitement ;  it  is  quite  new  to 
me — and  I  am  well  enough  now  to  walk  in  moderation.  Let  me 
know  when  you  receive  my  drawings.  I  am  doing  you  a  set  more 
— still  better  I  hope.  '  The  Artist's  Wife,'  seven  or  eight  shetches 
of  Claude  Mellot  and  Sabina,  two  of  my  most  darling  ideals,  with  a 
scrap  of  conversation  annexed  to  each,  just  embodying  my  dreams 
about  married  love  and  its  relation  to  art " 


TO    J.    M.    LUDLOW,    ESQ. 

Clovelly,  August  17,  1S49. 

'*  I  am  at  last  enjoying  perfect  rest — doing  nothing  but  fish, 
sail,  chat  with  old  sailor  and  Wesleyan  cronies,  and  read,  by  way  of 
a  nice  mixture,  Rabelais,  Pierre  Leroux,  and  Ruskin.  The  first, 
were  he  seven  times  as  unspeakably  filthy  as  he  is,  I  consider  as 
priceless  in  wisdom,  and  often  in  true  evangelic  godHness — more  of 
him  hereafter.  The  second  is  indeed  a  blessed  dawn.  The  third, 
a  noble,  manful,  godly  book,  a  blessed  dawn  too  :  but  I  cannot 
talk  about  them  ;  I  am  as  stupid  as  a  porpoise,  and  I  lie  in  the 
window,  and  smoke  and  watch  the  glorious  clou'^-phajtasmagoria. 
infinite  in  coror  and  form,  crawling  across  the  vast  bc.y  and  deep 
woods  below,  and  draw  little  sketches  of  figures,  and  ^o  not  even 
iheam,  much  less  think.     .     ...     ." 


I2v3  Charles  Kings  ley. 


TO    HIS    WIFE. 
CoLEBROOK,  Crediton,  September'  2,  1849 

"Starting  out  to  fish  down  to  Drew's  Teignton — the  old  Druid' J 
saced  place,  to  see  Logan  stones  and  cromlechs.  Yesterday  was 
the  most  charming  solitary  day  I  ever  spent  in  my  life — scenery 
more  lovely  than  tongue  can  tell  It  brought  out  of  me  the  follow- 
i7ig  bit  of  poetry,  with  many  happy  tears. 

POET. 

I  cannot  tell  what  you  say,  green  leaves, 

I  cannot  tell  what  you  say ; 
But  I  know  that  there  is  a  sphit  m  you, 

And  a  word  in  you  this  day. 

I  cannot  tell  what  ye  say,  rosy  rocks, 

I  cannot  tell  what  ye  say  ; 
But  I  know  that  there  is  a  spirit  in  you. 

And  a  word  in  you  this  day. 

I  cannot  tell  what  ye  say,  brown  streams, 

I  cannot  tell  what  ye  say ; 
But  I  know  in  you  too,  a  spirit  doth  live. 

And  a  word  in  you  this  day. 

THE  WORD'S  ANSWER. 

Oh,  rose  is  the  color  of  love  and  youth, 

And  green  is  the  color  of  faith  and  truth. 

And  brown  of  the  fruitful  clay. 

The  earth  is  fruitful,  and  faithful,  and  young. 

And  her  bridal  morn  shall  rise  ere  long. 

And  you  shall  know  what  the  rocks  and  the  streams^ 

And  the  laughing  green- woods  say  ! 

■•'Show  these  to  C.  If  she  has  taken  in  the  real  good  oi'^^vao^ 
fism,  she  ought  to  understand  them.  To-morrow  I  tramp  for  Two 
Ut  idges." 

And  now  the  Cholera  was  once  more  in  England,  and  sanitary 
matters  absorbed  him.  He  preaclied  three  striking  sermons  at 
Eversley,  on  Cholera,  "  Who  causes  Pestilence "  (published  to- 
gether in  1854,  with  preface).  He  worked  in  London  and  the 
country  in  the  crusade  against  dirt  and  bad  drainage.  The  terrible 
revelations  of  the  state  of  the  Water  supply  in  London  saddened 


Memories  by   C.  Kegan  Paul.  121 

and  sickened  him,  and  led  to  his  writing  an  article  in  the  '*  North 
British  Review"  on  the  subject.* 

At  this  period  many  young  men  from  Oxford  and  elsewhere 
gathered  round  him.  The  following  letter  from  one  of  them,  Mr. 
C.  Kegan  Paul,  speaks  for  itself  of  the  life  at  Eversley,  which  had 
bocon:e  a  centre  to  so  many  enquiring  spirits. 

"  I  first  saw  Charles  Kingsley  in  Oxford,  in  the  spring  term  of 
1848.  He  had  just  published  the  'Saint's  Tragedy,'  and  came  up 
to  stay  with  his  old  schoolfellow,  Cowley  Fowles,  one  of  our  Exeter 
tutors.  He  had  not,  I  think,  the  least  notion  he  would  find  himself 
famous,  but  he  was  so  among  a  not  inconsiderable  section  of  young 
Oxford,  even  one  month  after  tlie  drama  had  appeared.  A  large 
number  of  us  were  thoroughly  dissatisfied  with  the  high-church 
teaching,  which  then  was  that  of  most  earnest  tutors  in  Oxford, 
i'here  were,  indeed,  some  noble  exceptions, — Jowett  of  Balliol, 
Powles  of  Exeter,  Congreve  of  Wadham,  Stanley  of  University, 
Clough  of  Oriel.  But  they  were  scattered,  and  their  influence  was 
over  men  here  and  there  ;  the  high-churchmen  held  the  mass  of 
intelligent  young  men,  many  of  whom  revolted  in  spirit,  yet  had 
not  found  a  leader.  Here  was  a  book  which  showed  that  there  was 
poetry  also  in  the  strife  against  asceticism,  whose  manly  preface 
was  as  stirring  as  the  verse  it  heralded.  We  looked  at  its  author 
with  the  deepest  interest ;  it  was  a  privilege  to  have  been  in  the 
room  with  him ;  but  my  acquaintance  with  him  was  necessarily  of 
the  slightest. 

"  In  the  summer  of  the  following  year,  H.  Percy  Smith,  of  Balliol, 
who  also  had  met  Kmgsley  and  taken  a  walk  with  him  during  that 
memorable  Oxford  visit,  went  to  Eversley  as  curate,  and  almost  as 
soon  as  he  was  settled,  invited  me  to  stay  with  him  in  his  lodgings, 
about  half  a  mile  from  the  Rectory.  The  day  after  my  arrival  we 
dined  at  the  Rectory.  You  were  then  using  as  a  dining-room  the 
larger  room  which  afterwards  was  your  drawing-roon;i,  and  were 
alone  ;  Percy  and  I  were  the  only  guests.  We  went  into  the  studv 
afterwards  while  Kingsley  smoked  his  pipe,  and  the  evening  is  one 
of  those  that  stand  out  in  my  memory  with  peculiar  vividness.  J 
had  never  then,  I  have  seldom  since,  heard  a  man  talk  so  well. 

"Kingsley's  conversational  powers  were  very  remarkable.  In 
the  first  place  he  had,  as  may  be  easily  understood  by  the  readers 
of  his  books,  a  rare  command  of  racy  and  correct  English,  while  he 
!vas  so  many  sided  that  he  could  take  keen  interest  in  almost  any 
subject  which  attracted  those  about  him.  He  had  read,  and  read 
much,  not  only  in  matters  which  every  one  ought  to  know,  but  had 
gone  deeply  into  many  out-of  the-way  and  unexi)ected  studies.   Old 

*  ■'  Water  Supply  of  London,"  pulilished  in  the  Miscellanies. 


122  Charles  Kings  ley. 

medicine,  magic,  the  occult  properties  of  plants,  folk-lore,  niesmei 
ism,  nooks  and  bye-ways  of  history,  old  legends  ;  on  all  these  he 
was  at  home.  On  the  habits  and  dispositions  of  animals  he  would 
talk  as  though  he  were  that  king  in  the  Arabian  Nights  who  under- 
stood the  language  of  beasts,  or  at  least  had  lived  among  the 
gipsies  who  loved  him  so  well.  The  stammer,  which  in  those  days 
was  so  much  more  marked  than  in  later  years,  and  which  was  a 
serious  discomfort  to  himself,  was  no  drawback  to  the  charm  of  his 
conversation.  Rather  the  hesitation  before  some  brilliant  llash  of 
words  served  to  lend  point  to  and  intensify  what  he  was  saying ; 
and  when,  as  he  sometimes  did,  he  fell  into  a  monologue,  or  recited 
a  poern  in  his  sonorous  voice,  the  stammer  left  him  wholly,  as  it  did 
when  he  read  or  preached  in  church. 

"  When,  however,  I  use  the  v/^ord  monologue,  it  must  not  be 
supposed  that  he  ever  monoi)oli2ed  the  talk.  He  had  a  courteous 
deference  for  the  opinions  of  the  most  insigniticant  person  in  the 
circle,  and  was  even  too  tolerant  of  a  bore.  With  all  his  vast 
powers  of  conversation,  and  ready  to  talk  on  every  or  any  subject, 
he  was  never  superficial.  What  he  knew  he  knew  well,  and  was 
always  ready  to  admit  the  fact  when  he  did  not  know. 

"The  morning  after  that  evening  in  the  study,  came  a  note  to 
me  dated,  'Bed  this  morning,'  inviting  me  to  breakfast,  and  to 
transfer  my  goods  from  the  village  public  house — Percy  Smith  had 
no  spare  bed-room — to  the  Rectory.  I  did  so,  and  this  was  the 
first  of  many  visits,  each  one  of  increasing  intimacy  and  pleasure. 
I  cannot  do  better  than  expand  some  notes  of  those  visits,  which  I 
sent  to  the  'Examiner'  newspaper,  in  the  week  which  followed 
Kingsley's  death  last  year  : — 

"  'To  those  who,  in  the  years  of  which  we  speak,  were  constant 
guests  at  Eversley,  that  happy  home  can  never  be  forgotten. 
Kingsley  was  in  the  vigor  of  his  manhood  and  of  his  intellectual 
powers,  was  administering  his  parish  with  enthusiasm,  was  writing, 
reading,  fishing,  walking,  preaching,  talking,  with  a  twenty-parson 
power,  but  was  at  the  same  time  wholly  unlike  the  ordinary  and 
conventional  parson. 

"  *The  picturesque  bow-windowed  Rectory  rises  to  memory  as  it 
stood  with  all  its  doors  and  windows  open  on  certain  hot  summer 
days,  the  sloping  bank  with  its  great  fir-tree,  the  garden — a  gravel 
sweep  before  the  drawing-room  and  dining-rooms,  a  grass-plat  befor'; 
the  study,  hedged  otit"  from  the  walk — and  the  tall  active  figure  of  the 
Rector  tramping  up  and  down  one  or  the  other.  His  energy  made  him 
seem  everywhere,  and  to  pervade  every  part  of  house  and  garden. 
The  MS.  of  the  book  he  was  writing  lay  open  on  a  rough  standing 
desk,  which  was  merely  a  shelf  projecting  from  the  wall ;  his  pu[)lli" 
— two  in  number,  and  treated  like  his  own  sons — were  working  in 
the  dining-room  ;  his  guests  perhaps  lounging  on  the  lawn,  or  read- 
ing in  the  study.     And  he  had  time  for  all,  going  from  writing  to 


Mtuiorics  by   C.   Kcgaii  Paul.  123 

lecturing  on  optics,  or  to  a  passage  in  Virgil,  from  this  to  a  /ehe- 
ment  conversation  with  a  guest,  or  tender  care  for  his  wife — who 
was  far  frv'^m  strong — or  a  romp  with  his  children.  He  would  work 
himself  into  a  sort  of  white  heat  over  his  book,  till,  too  excited  to 
write  more,  he  would  calm  himself  down  by  a  pipe,  pacing  his  grass- 
plat  in  thought  and  with  long  strides.  He  was  a  great  smoker,  an'l 
tobacco  was  to  him  a  needful  sedative.  He  always  used  a  long 
and  clean  clay  pijje,  which  lurked  in  all  sorts  of  unexpected  places. 
But  none  was  eve;  smoked  which  was  in  any  degree  foul,  and  when 
theie  was  a  vast  accunuilation  of  old  pipes,  they  were  sent  back 
again  to  the  kiln  to  be  rebaked,  and  returned  fresh  and  new. 
This  gave  him  a  striking  simile,  which,  in  "  Alton  Locke,"  he  puts 
into  the  mouth  of  James  Crossthwaite.  "  Katie  here  believes 
in  Purgatory,  where  souls  are  burnt  clean  again,  like  'bacca 
pipes."  ' 

"When  luncheon  was  over,  and  any  arrears  of  the  morning's 
work  cleared  up,  a  walk  with  Kingsley  was  an  occasion  of  constant 
pleasure.  His  delight  in  every  fresh  or  known  bit  of  scenery  was 
iiost  keen,  and  his  knowledge  of  animal  life  invested  the  walk 
with  singular  novelty  even  to  those  who  were  already  country  bred. 
1  remember  standing  on  the  top  of  a  hill  with  him  when  the  autumn 
evening  was  fading,  and  one  of  the  sun's  latest  rays  struck  a  patcl- 
on  the  moor,  bringing  out  a  very  peculiar  mixture  of  red-brown 
colors.  What  were  the  precise  plants  which  composed  that  patch  ? 
He  hurriedly  ran  over  the  list  of  what  he  thought  they  were,  and 
then  set  off  over  hedge  and  ditch,  through  bog  and  water-course, 
to  verify  the  list  he  had  already  made. 

"  During  these  afternoon  walks  he  would  visit  one  or  another  of 
his  very  scattered  hamlets  or  single  cottages  on  the  heaths.  Those 
who  have  read  '  My  Winter  Garden,'  in  the  '  Miscellanies,'  know 
how  he  loved  the  moor  under  all  its  aspects,  and  the  great  groves 
of  tirs.  Nothing  was  ever  more  real  than  Kingsley's  parish  visit- 
ing. He  believed  absolutely  in  the  message  he  bore  to  the  poor, 
and  the  health  his  ministrations  conveyed  to  their  souls,  but  he  was 
at  the  same  time  a  zealous  sanitary  reformer,  and  cared  for  their 
bodies  also.  I  was  with  him  once  when  he  visited  a  sick  man 
suffering  from  fever.  The  atmosphere  of  the  little  ground-flooi 
bed  room  was  horrible,  but  before  the  Rector  said  a  word  he  ran 
up-stairs,  and,  to  the  great  astonishment  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
cottage,  bored,  with  a  large  auger  he  had  brought  with  him,  several 
holes  above  the  bed's  head  for  ventilation.  His  reading  in  the 
sick  room  and  his  words  were  wholly  free  from  cant.  The  Psalms 
and  the  Pro])hets,  with  judicious  omissions,  seemed  to  gain  new 
meaning  as  he  read  them,  and  his  after-words  were  always  cheerful 
and  hopeful.  Sickness,  in  his  eyes,  seemed  always  to  sanctify  and 
purify.  He  would  say,  with  the  utmost  modesty,  that  the  patient 
endurance  of  the  pooi  taug'U  him  day  by  day  lessons  which  he  took 


124  Charles  Kings  ley, 

back  again  as  God's  message  to  the  bed-side  from  which  he  hai 
learnt  them. 

"  One  great  element  of  success  in  his  intercourse  with  his  parish-' 
ioners  was  his  abounding  humor  and  fun.  What  caused  a  hearty 
laugh  was  a  real  refreshment  to  him,  and  he  had  the  strongest  be- 
lief that  laughter  an  .1  humor  were  elements  in  the  nature  of  God 
Himself. 

"  This  abounding  humor  has  with  some  its  dangers.  Not  so 
with  Kingsley.  No  man  loved  a  good  story  better  than  lie,  but 
there  was  always  in  what  he  told  or  what  he  suffered  himself  to 
^car,  a  good  and  pure  moral  underlying  what  might  be  coarse  in 
expression.  While  he  would  laugh  with  the  keenest  sense  of 
amusement  at  what  might  be  simply  broad,  he  had  the  most  utter 
scorn  and  loathing  for  all  that  could  debase  and  degrade.  And  he 
was  the  most  reverent  of  men,  though  he  would  say  things  which 
seemed  daring  because  people  were  unaccustomed  to  hear  sacred 
things  named  without  a  pious  snuffle.  This  great  reverence  led 
him  to  be  even  unjust  to  some  of  the  greatest  humorists.  I  quoted 
Heine  one -day  at  his  table.  'Who  was  Heine?'  asked  his  little 
daughter.  '  A  wicked  man,  my  dear,'  was  the  only  answer  given 
to  her,  and  an  implied  rebuke  to  me. 

"  On  the  week-day  evenings  he  frequently  held  a  '  cottage 
lecture '  or  short  ser\"ice  in  a  cottage,  for  the  old  and  feeble  who 
lived  at  a  distance  from  church.  To  this  he  would  sally  forth  in  a 
fisherman's  knitted  blouse  if  the  night  were  wet  or  cold. 

"  Old  and  new  friends  came  and  went  as  he  grew  famous — not 
too  strong  a  word  for  the  feeling  of  those  days — and  the  drawing, 
room  evening  conversations  and  readings,  the  tobacco  parliaments 
later  into  the  night,  included  many  of  the  most  remarkable  persons 
of  the  day. 

"  I  do  not  give  any  recollections  of  those  conversations,  partly 
because  it  would  be  difficult  to  do  so  without  giving  names  which 
1  have  no  right  here  to  introduce,  and  partly  because  his  opinions 
on  all  subjects  will  be  amply  illustrated  in  his  own  words  from  let- 
ters to  many  who  sought  his  advice.  But  1  know  that  those 
evening  talks  kept  more  than  one  who  shared  in  them  from 
Rome,  and  weaned  more  than  one  from  vice,  while  others  had 
doubts  to  faith  removed  which  had  long  paralyzed  the  energy  of 
their  lives. 

•■  It  would  not  be  right,  however,  to  pass  over  the  fact  "ihat  it  was 
through  his  advice,  and  mainly  in  consequence  of  the  aid  he  gave 
kne,  that  I  was  myself  enabled  to  take  orders.  You  know  that  J 
nave  again  become  a  layman,  but  though  my  views  have  greatly 
developed  from  those  I  held  twenty-three  years  ago,  I  do  not 
regret  that  I  then  was  encouraged  to  become  a  clergyman.  Kings, 
ley  enabled  me  to  dismiss  at  once  and  forever  all  faith  whatever  ir, 
the  popular  doctrine  of  etrrnal  punishment,  and  all  the  whole  class 


Memories  by   C.  Kegan  Paul.  125 

of  ijogmas  which  tend  to  confuse  the  characters  of  Crod  and  the 
Devil. 

"  A  day  rises  vividly  to  memory,  when  Kingsley  remained  shut 
up  in  the  study  during  the  afternoon,  the  door  bolted,  inaccessible 
to  all  interruption.  The  drowsy  hour  had  come  on  between  the 
lights,  when  it  was  time  to  dress  for  dinner,  and  talk,  without  the 
great  inspirer  of  it,  was  growing  disjointed  and  fragmentary,  when 
ne  came  in  from  the  study,  a  paper,  yet  undried,  in  his  hand,  and 
read  us  the  '  Lay  of  the  Last  Buccaneer,'  most  spirited  of  all  his 
ballads.  One  who  had  been  lying  back  in  an  arm-chair,  known 
for  its  seductive  properties  as  'sleepy  hollow,'  roused  up  then,  and 
could  hardly  sleep  all  night  for  the  inspiring  music  of  the  words 
read  by  one  of  the  very  best  readers  I  have  ever  heard. 

"  It  was  my  good  fortune  to  be  staying  with  you  through  the  sum- 
mer in  which  the  greater  part  of  '  Hypatia '  was  written.  I  was 
especially  struck  not  only  with  his  power  of  work,  but  with  the  extra- 
ordinary pains  he  took  to  be  accurate  in  detail.  We  spent  one 
whole  day  in  searching  the  four  folio  volumes  of  Synesius  for  a  fact 
he  thought  was  there,  and  which  was  found  there  at  last.  The  hard 
reading  he  had  undergone  for  that  book  alone  would  furnish  an 
answer  to  some  who  thought  him  superficial. 

"  Others  will  write  better  than  I  of  his  work  in  the  parish  gener- 
ally, and  of  his  theology. 

"  In  some  places  in  the  country  it  is  still  the  custom  to  perform 
part  of  the  niarriage  service  in  the  body  of  the  church,  and  then 
proceed  to  the  chancel.  So  it  had  always  been  in  the  Oxfordshire 
parish  to  which  I  was  appointed.  Kingsley  told  with  infinite  delight 
how  a  curate  at  or  near  Bideford  had  tried  to  introduce  the  practice, 
and  how  the  Devon  clerk  protested,  saying,  '  First  he  went  up  the 
church,  and  then  he  went  down  the  church,  side-a-ways,  here-a-ways, 
and  theer-a-ways,  a  scrattlin'  like  a  crab.' 

"  His  sermons  were  full  of  most  tender  care  for  individual 
cases  known  only  to  himself.  When  he  was  most  impressive  and 
pathetic  it  was  generally  because  his  sermon  touched  the  sorrow  of 
some  one  in  the  congregation,  though  the  words  seemed  general. 
Once,  when  I  was  to  preach  for  him,  he  asked  me  to  let  him  look 
at  two  or  three  MS.  sermons  I  had  with  me.  He  read  them  care- 
fully, and  selected  one,  not  by  any  means  the  best  written.  Preach 
that,  Charles  ;  there  is  a  poor  soul  who  will  be  in  church  whose  sii;a 
it  may  touch,  and  whose  sorrows  it  may  heal.     God  help  us  all.' 

"In  the  summer  of  185 1,  I  travelled  from  Reading  to  London 
with  Miss  Mitford,  who  did  not  then  know  Kingsley,  though  after- 
wards they  became  very  good  friends.  She  said  she  had  driven  by 
Eversley  churchyard  a  few  days  before,  and  had  seen  Kingsley 
rea  Ung  the  funeral  service;  that  he  looked  quite  what  she  should 
have  expected,  '  a  pale  student.'  I  need  hardly  say  she  had  seen 
his  curate  and  that  Kingsley  was  as  unlike  a  pale  student  as  any 


126  Charles  Kings  ley. 

man  who  ever  lived.  His  temperament  was  artistic  and  impulsive 
He  delighted  in  out-door  life,  in  sport,  in  nature  in  all  her  moods 
and  phases.  His  physical  frame  was  powerful  and  wiry,  his  com- 
plexion dark,  his  eye  bright  and  piercing.  Yet  he  often  said  he  did 
not  think  that  his  would  be  a  long  life,  and  the  event  has  sadly  con- 
firmed his  anticipations. 

'*  My  life  at  Eton  as  Master  in  College  was  one  which  left  me 
scant  time  for  visits  to  Eversley.  But  my  rare  interviews  with 
Kingsley,  when  I  snatched  a  day  to  drive  over,  were  always  full  of 
delight.  I  often  consulted  him  about  professional  difficulties,  and 
found  his  insight  into  school-boy  life  most  remarkable,  and  his 
sympathy  with  the  young  unflagging.  He  spent  one  day  only  with 
us  at  Eton  in  those  eight  years,  but  I  remember  his  delight  in  a  row 
on  the  river,  visiting  the  boys'  bathing  places. 

"  Cambridge,  indeed,  in  those  years  was  more  accessible  than 
Eversley,  and  that  again  would  furnish  me  with  somewhat  to  say, 
did  not  others  know  that  portion  of  the  life  better  than  I.  I  was 
staying  at  Cambridge  at  the  time  of  the  Prince  Consort's  death, 
and  remember  how  he  was  affected  by  it,  as  at  the  loss  of  a  per- 
sonal friend.  I  walked  over  the  next  day  to  Maddingley  W/th 
Kingsley,  who  wished  to  hear  Windsor  news  from  some  of  the  suite, 
and  met,  on  the  way,  more  than  one  of  the  specially  chosen  young 
associates  of  the  Prince  of  Wales.  I  can  never  forget,  nor  probably 
will  those  who  were  addressed  forget,  the  earnest,  solemn,  and 
agitated  tones  in  which  he  spoke  of  the  Prince  Consort's  cire  for 
his  son,  and  the  duty  which  lay  on  them,  the  Prince  of  Wales' 
young  friends,  to  see  that  they  did  all  in  their  power  to  enforce  the 
wise  counsel  of  him  who  was  dead. 

"  My  removal  into  Dorset  yet  further  sundered  us  in  person,  but 
never  in  heart.  When  we  met  from  time  to  time,  his  cordial  grasp 
said  more  than  words  to  assure  me  of  the  old  brotherly  affection. 

•'  Coming  once  more  to  live  in  London,  I  hoped  for  the  old 
unrestricted  intimacy  once  again.  It  was  not  so  to  be.  I  saw  him, 
and  saw  him  only  but  once,  enough  to  notice  that  he  was  sorely 
changed  in  body,  whicli,  though  far  from  puny,  was  fretted  away 
by  his  fiery  spirit.  And  when  they  laid  him  to  rest,  in  Eversley 
charchyard,  near  the  graves  where  some  whom  he  loved  repose, 
and  where  the  shadow  of  the  great  Scotch  fir  lies  each  summer 
afternoon,  I  could  stand  by  his  grave  only  in  thought.  But  it  will 
ever  have  association  of  the  most  solemn  kind.  I  am  among  those 
many  who  can  nevei  forget  that,  widely  as  they  have  differed  fiora 
Charles  Kingsley,  and  that,  whatever  were  his  failings  and  incom- 
pletenesses, his  was  just  that  one  influence  which,  at  a  time  they 
needed  a  guide,  roused  them  to  live  manly  lives,  and  play  their 
parts  in  the  stir  of  the  world,  while  to  me  he  was  the  noblestj 
truest,  kindest  friend  I  ever  had  or  can  hope  to  have." 


CHAPTER  IX 

1850— 1851. 
Aged  31,  32. 

Resigns  the  Office  of  Clerk  in  Orders  at  Chelsea — Pupil  Life  at  Eversley — Pul> 
lication  of  "  Alton  Locke" — Letters  from  Mr.  Carlyle — Writes  for  "  Chris- 
tian Socialist" — Troubled  State  of  the  Country — Burgla.'ies — The  Rectorj 
Attacked. 

The  year  1850  was  spent  by  the  Rector  of  Eversley  at  home,  in 
better  health,  with  still  fuller  employment ;  for  in  addition  to  parish 
and  writing,  he  had  the  work  of  teaching  a  private  pupil,  which 
was  quite  new  to  him.  Times  were  bad,  rates  were  high,  rate- 
payers discontented,  and  all  classes  felt  the  pressure.  The  Rector 
felt  it  also,  but  he  met  it  by  giving  the  tenants  back  ten  per  cent. 
on  their  tithe  payments,  and  thus  at  once  and  for  ever  he  won 
their  confidence. 

He  had,  since  his  marriage,  held  the  office  of  Clerk  in  Orders  in 
his  father's  parish  of  St.  Luke's,  Chelsea,  which  added  consider- 
ably to  his  income,  and  in  those  days  was  not  considered  incom- 
patible with  non-residence  ;  but  though  his  deputy  was  well  paid, 
and  he  himself  occasionally  preached  and  lectured  in  Chelsea,  he 
looked  upon  the  post  as  a  sinecure,  and  so  he  resigned  it.  The 
loss  of  income  must  however  be  met,  and  this  could  only  be  done 
by  his  pen.  It  was  a  heavy  struggle  just  then,  with  Rector's  Poor 
Rates  at  ^^150  per  annum,  and  the  parish  charities  mainly  depen- 
dent on  him  ;  but  he  set  to  work  with  indomitable  industry,  and 
by  a  great  effort  finished  "Alton  Locke."  It  was  a  busy  winter, 
fo:  the  literary  work  was  not  allowed  to  interfere  with  the  pupil 
woik,  or  either  with  the  parish  ;  he  got  up  at  five  every  morning, 
and  wrote  till  breakfast ;  after  breakfast  he  worked  with  his  pupil 
and  at  his  sermons  ;  the  afternoons  were  devoted  as  usual  to  cot- 
tage visiting  ;  the  evenings  to  adult  school  and  superintending  the 
fair  copy  of  "  Alton  Locke  made  by  his  wife  for  the  press.  It 
was  the  only  book  of  which  he  had  a  fair  copy  made.     His  habii 


128  Charles  Kingsley. 

was  thoroughly  to  master  his  subject,  whether  book  or  sermon,  al 
ways  out  in  the  open  air,  in  his  garden,  on  the  moor,  or  by  the  side 
of  a  lonely  trout  stream,  and  never  to  put  pen  to  paper  till  the 
ideas  were  clothed  in  words  ;  and  these,  except  in  the  case  of 
poetry,  he  seldom  altered.  For  many  years  his  writing  was  all 
lone  by  his  wife  from  his  dictation,  while  he  paced  up  and  down 
ll'e  room. 

When  "  Alton  Locke  "  was  completed,  the  difficulty  was  to  find 
a  publisher  :  Messrs.  Parker,  who  had,  or  thought  they  had,  suffered 
xw  reputation  for  publishing  "Yeast"  in  the  pages  of  Fraser,  and 
"  Politics  for  the  People,"  refused  the  book  ;  and  Mr.  Carlyle 
kindly  gave  the  author  an  introduction  to  Messrs.  Chapman  & 
Hall,  who,  on  the  strength  of  his  recommendation,  undertook  to 
bring  it  out. 

"I  have  written  to  Chapman,"  says  Mr.  Carlyle,  "and  you  shall 
hive  his  answer,  on  Sunday,  if  it  come  within  post  hours  to-mor- 
row ;  if  not  then  on  Tuesday.  But  without  any  answer,  I  believe 
1  may  already  assure  you  of  a  respectful  welcome,  and  the  new 
novel  of  a  careful  and  hopeful  examination  from  the  man  of  books. 
He  is  sworn  to  secrecy  too.  This  is  all  the  needful  to-day, — in 
such  an  unspeakable  hurry  as  this  present. 

"  And  so,  right  glad  myself  to  hear  of  a  new  explosion,  or  salvo 
of  red-hot  shot  against  the  Devil's  Uung-heap,  from  that  particulai 
battery, 

"  I  remain, 

"Yours  always  truly, 

"  T.  Carlyle." 

The  spread  of  infidel  opinions  among  the  working  classes  and 
the  necessity  of  meeting  them,  continually  occupied  him,  and  \\s 
writes  to  his  friend  Mr.  Ludlow, 

"But  there  is  something  else  which  weighs  awfully  on  my  mind, 
— the  first  number  of  Cooper's  Journal,  which  he  sent  me  the  other 
day.  Here  is  a  man  of  immense  influence,  openly  preaching 
Slraussism.  to  the  workmen,  and  in  a  fair,  honest,  manly  way,  which 
must  tell.  Who  will  answer  him  ?  Who  will  answer  Strauss  ?  Who 
will  denounce  Strauss  as  a  vile  aristocrat,  robbing  the  poor  man  of 
his  Saviour — of  the  ground  of  all  democracy,  all  freedom,  all  asso- 
ciation— of  the  Charter  itself?  Oil  si  mihi  centum  voces  et  ferrea 
lingua.  Think  abou'  that — talk  to  Maurice  about  that.  To  me 
it  is  awfully  pressing.  If  the  priests  of  the  Lord  are  wanting  to  the 
cause  now  1 — woe  to  us  !     .     .     .     . 


A  Flood.  129 

"Don't  fire  at  me  about  smoking.  I  do  it,  because  it  does  me 
good,  and  I  could  not  (for  I  have  tried  again  and  again)  do  without 
it  I  smoke  the  very  cheapest  tobacco.  In  the  meantime  I  am 
keeping  no  horse — a  most  real  self  sacrifice  to  me.  But  if  I  did,  I 
should  have  so  much  the  less  to  give  to  the  poor,  God  knows  ali 
about  that,  John  I.udlow,  and  about  other  things  too." 

EvERSLEY,  June,  1850. 

"Up  till  one  this  morning,  keeping  a  great  flood  out — amid  such 
lightning  and  rain  as  I  think  I  never  saw  before ;  up  to  my  knees 
in  water,  working  with  a  pickaxe  by  candle-light  to  break  holes  in 
the  wall,  to  prevent  all  being  washed  away.  Luckily  my  garden  is 
saved.  But  it  all  goes  with  me  under  the  head  of  '  fun.'  Some- 
thing to  do — and  lightning  is  my  highest  physical  enjoyment.  I 
should  like  to  have  my  thunderstorm  daily,  as  one  has  one's 
dinner.  What  a  providence  I  did  not  go  to  town  last  night. 
My  man  was  gone  home,  and  we  should  have  had  the  garden 
ruined,  and  the  women  frightened  out  of  their  wits." 

A  new  penny  periodical  had  been  proposed,  to  counteract  the 
spread  of  infidel  opinions  among  the  masses.  Before  it  was  set 
on  foot  the  writers  for  "Politics"  brought  out  a  series  of  tracts, 
"  On  Christian  Socialism."  Among  the  most  remarkable  was 
'*  Cheap  Clothes,  and  Nasty,"  by  Parson  Lot,*  exposing  the  slop- 
selling  system,  which  was  at  the  root  of  much  of  the  distress  in 
London  and  the  great  towns.  The  Tailors'  Association  was  formed, 
and  a  shop  opened  in  Castle  Street,  to  which  the  publication  of 
*'  Cheap  Clothes "  took  many  customers ;  and  in  June,  a  friend 
writes  to  Mrs.  Kingsley  from  London  : — 

" .  .  .  Three  copies  of  '  Cheap  Clothes,  and  Nasty'  are 
lying  on  the  Guards'  Club  table  !  Percy  Fielding  (Captain  in  the 
Guards)  went  to  Castle  Street  and  ordered  a  coat,  and  I  met  two 
i-.ien  at  dinner  yesterday  with  Castle  Street  coats  on." 

In  August  the  Rectory  party  had  an  addition,  Mr.  Lees,  a 
young  Cambridge  man  arriving  for  three  months  to  read  for  Holy 
Orders.  It  was  a  bold  step  in  those  days  for  any  man  to  take,  to 
read  divinity  with  the  author  of  "Yeast"  and  "Alton  Locke,"  but 
after  twenty-six  years'  ministry  in  the  Church,  he  looks  back  to  it 
as  a  time  not  only  of  enjoyment,  but  of  profit. 

With  his  pupil  he  read  Strauss's  "  I^eben  Jesu,"  of  which  an 
English    translation   had  just   been   published.       He    considered 

*  Now  republished  in  anew  edition  of  "  Alton  Locke." 

9 


130  Charles  Kings  ley. 

Strauss,  as  he  considered  Comte  eighteen  years  later,  the  greaj 
false  prophet  of  the  day,  who  must  be  faced  and  fought  against  bj 
the  clergy. 

To  another  candidate  for  Holy  Orders,  wl.o  wrote  to  him  at  thai 
time,  he  replies  : — 

TO   C.   KEGAN   PAUL,    ESQ. 

"  You  wish  to  know  what  to  read  for  Orders  ?  That  depends 
Oa  what  you  mean.  If  to  get  through  a  Bishop's  examination,  just 
ask  any  one  who  has  been  lately  ordained  what  he  crammed  ;  and 
cram  that,  which  may  take  you  some  six  weeks,  and  no  trouble. 

"  But  if  you  want  to  be  of  any  use,  I  should  advise  you,  if  you 
can,  which  all  men  cannot,  to  sit  down  and  read  your  Bible 
nonestly,  and  let  it  tell  you  its  own  story,  utterly  careless  of  any 
tneories.  High  Church  or  Puritan,  which  have  been  put  into  the 
text  first,  and  then  found  there  by  their  own  inserters. 

"  For  instance  :  read  the  Pentateuch  and  the  books  of  Samuel 
and  Kings ;  Isaiah  in  Lovvth's  and  the  minor  prophets  in  New- 
come's  translation  ;  the  Gospels  from  Alford's  new  text,  and  the 
Epistles  by  the  light  of  your  own  common  sense  and  honest  scholar- 
ship. Believe  that  if-oiJ?  means  a  foot  in  profane  Greek,  it  will 
most  likely  mean  a  foot  also  in  ecclesiastical  Greek,  and  avoid  the 
popular  belief  that  the  A[)ostles  write  barbarisms,  whenever  their 
words  cannot  be  made  to  square  at  first  sight  with  Laud  or  Calvin. 

"  For  books  :  Kitto's  '  Encyclopsedia  of  Biblical  Literature'  will 
tell  you  all  that  is  known  of  Bible  history  and  antiquities  ;  *  and  for 
doctrine,  I  advise  you  to  read  Maurice's  '  Kingdom  of  Christ,' 
'  Christmas  Day  and'  other  sermons,'  and  his  new  edition  of  the 
'Moral  and  Metaphysical  Philosophy.' 

"  Thus  much  now,  but  if  you  will  ask  me  questions  from  time  to 
time,  I  will  tell  you  all  I  know,  if  you  think  my  knowledge  worth 
having.  Never  think  of  bothering  me.  It  is  a  delight  to  me  to 
give  hints  to  any  one  whom  I  can  ever  so  little  put  forward  in  these 
confused  times." 

During  the  autumn  of  1850  the  state  of  the  country  was  ominous. 
In  his  own  parish  there  was  still  low  fever,  and  a  general  depression 
prevailed.  Work  was  slack,  and  as  winter  approached  gangs  of 
housebreakers  and  men  who  preferred  begging  and  robbery  to  the 
workhouse,  wandered  about  Hampshiie,  Surrey,  and  Sussex.  No 
house  was   secure.     Mr.  Holiest,  the   clergyman  of  Frimley,  was 

*  It  must  be  remembered  that  this  was  in  1850,  before  the  "  Dictionary  (A 
the  Bible,"  &c.,  S:c. ,  were  published. 


Forebodings.  1 3  ^ 

murdered  in  his  own  garden  while  pursuing  the  thieres ;  and 
the  little  Rectory  at  Eversley,  whicli  had  never  hitherto  needed  pro- 
tection, and  had  scarcely  a  strong  lock  on  its  doors,  was  aimed 
with  bolts  and  bars,  fortunately  before  it  too  was  attempted  by  the 
sanie  gang.  The  Rector  slept  with  lo-'^ded  pistols  by  his  bed-side, 
and  policemen  from  Winchester  watched  in  snd  about  the  quiet 
garden  by  night.  The  future  of  England  looked  dark,  and  he  write* 
to  Mr.  Maurice  : — 

Eversley,  Sunday,  October,  185a 
"  My  dearest  Master, 

"  I  hear  you  are  come  home.  If  so,  for  God's  sake  come 
down  and  see  me,  if  but  for  a  day.  I  have  more  doubts,  perplexi- 
ties, hopes,  and  fears  to  pour  out  to  you  than  I  could  utter  in  a 
week,  and  to  the  rest  of  our  friends  I  cannot  open.  You  compre- 
hend me  ;  you  are  bigger  than  I.  Come  down  and  tell  me  what 
to  think  and  do,  and  let  Fanny  as  well  as  me,  have  the  delight  of 
seeing  your  face  again.  I  would  come  to  you,  but  I  have  two 
pupils,  and  business  besides,  and  also  don't  know  when  and  how  to 
catch  you. 

"  The  truth  is,  I  feel  we  are  all  going  on  in  the  dark,  toward  some- 
thing wonderful  and  awful,  but  whether  to  a  precipice  or  a  paradise, 
or  neither,  or  both,  I  cannot  tell.  All  my  old  roots  are  tearing  up 
one  by  one,  and  though  I  keep  a  gallant  '  front '  before  the  Char- 
lotte Street  people  (Council  of  Association),  little  they  know  of 
the  struggles  within  me,  the  laziness,  the  terror.  Pray  for  me  ;  I 
could  lie  down  and  cry  at  times.  A  poor  fool  of  a  fellow,  and  yet 
feeling  thrust  upon  all  sorts  of  great  and  unspeakable  paths,  in- 
stead of  being  left  in  peace  to  classify  butterflies  and  catch  trout. 

"  If  it  were  not  for  the  Psalms  and  Prophets,  and  the  Gospelr., 
I  should  turn  tail,  and  flee  shamefully,  giving  up  the  whole  ques- 
tion, and  all  others,  as  cegri  somnia." 

TO    J.  M.   LUDLOW,  ESQ. 

Eversley,  Oitober,  1850. 

"  I  have  been  thinking  about  two  ways  of  working  this  penny 
periodical,  and  which  is  the  right.  Whether  our  present  idea  is 
not  to  write  down  to  the  people,  to  address  ourselves  too  exclu- 
sively to  the  working  man,  to  give  them  only  a  part  of  our  thoughts  ? 
Whether  the  truly  democratic  method  would  not  be  to  pour  out  our 
whole  souls  in  it.  To  say,  if  not  all  we  think,  yet  all  we  think  fit 
to  say  on  every  subject ;  to  make  it,  if  possible,  an  organ  of  Chris- 
tian teaching  to  all  classes,  on  the  things  now  agitating  their  minds. 

*'  To  have  the  best  criticism,  metaphysics,  history,  and  everything 
else,  and  by  teaching  all,  to  teach  the  working  ;nan  meiely  as  a 


132  Charles  Kings  ley. 

member  of  the  whole,  and  of  equal  rights  and  mind  with  all.  1 
cannot  help  fancymg  this  the  tru-j  brotherly  method — to  speak  ta 
factory-worker  and  duke  alike — to  put  them  on  one  common 
ground,  show  that  we  consider  them  subject  to  the  same  law. 

"  The  rogues  are  frightened  off.  I  had  to  send  a  charge  of 
slugs,  not  deadly  though  unpleasantly  straight,  after  one  the  othei 
night,  and  they  have  eschewed  us  since. 

"  I  will  get  ready  the  Labor  Conference  Tract  as  soon  as  I  can. 
But  I  have  been  disorganized,  and  kept  up  at  night  by  these  song 
of  Belial,  and  so  I  am  behind  in  my  work " 

''Jeremiah  is  my  favorite  book  now.  It  has  taught  me  more 
than  tongue  can  tell.  But  I  am  much  disheartened,  and  am 
minded  to  speak  no  more  words  in  this  name  (Parson  Lot).  Yet 
all  these  buUyings  teach  one,  correct  one,  warn  one,  show  one 
that  God  is  not  leaving  one  to  go  one's  own  way.  '  Christ  reigns,* 
quoth  Luther." 

"  Alton  Locke "  came  out  in  August,  and  the  verdict  of  the 
Press  was  of  course  a  severe  one.  The  best  artizans,  however, 
hailed  it  as  a  true  picture  of  their  class  and  circumstances,  and 
there  are  still  thoughtful  men  and  women  of  the  higher  orders  who 
consider  it  one  of  the  finest  of  his  productions.  Mr.  Carlyle's 
words  on  the  subject  are  noteworthy. 

Chelsea,  October  31,  1850. 

"  It  IS  now  a  great  many  weeks  that  I  have  been  your  debto/ 
for  a  book  which  in  various  senses  was  very  welcome  to  me. 
'  Alton  Locke '  arrived  in  Annandale,  by  post,  from  my  wife,  early 
in  September,  and  was  swiftly  read  by  me,  under  the  bright  sun- 
shine, by  the  sound  of  rushing  brooks  and  other  rural  accompani- 
ments. I  believe  the  book  is  still  doing  duty  in  those  parts  ;  for  I 
had  to  leave  it  behind  me  on  loan,  to  satisfy  the  public  demand. 
Forgive  me  that  I  have  not,  even  by  a  word,  thanked  you  for  this 
favor.  Continual  shifting  and  moving  ever  since,  not  under  the 
best  omens,  has  hindered  me  from  writing  almost  on  any  subject 
or  to  any  person. 

'  Apart  from  your  treatment  of  my  own  poor  self  (on  which  sub- 
ject let  me  not  venture  to  speak  at  all),  I  found  plenty  to  like,  and 
be  grateful  for  in  the  book  :  abundance,  nay  exuberance  of  gen- 
eral zeal ;  head  long  impetuosity  of  determination  towards  the  man- 
ful side  on  all  manner  of  questions  ;  snatches  of  excellent  poetic 
description,  occasional  sunbursts  of  noble  insight ;  everywhere  a 
certain  wild  intensity,  which  holds  the  reader  fost  as  by  a  spell  : 
these  surely  are  good  quaUties,  and  pregnant  omens  in  a  man  o( 
your  seniority  in  the  regiment !     At  the  same,  time,  I  am  bound  to 


Letter  fr 0711   Tko7?tas.   Carlyle.  133 

say,  the  book  is  definable  as  crude ;  by  no  manner  of  means  the 
best  we  expect  of  you — if  you  will  resclutely  temper  your  fire. 
But  to  make  the  malt  sweet,  the  fire  should  and  must  be  slow : 
so  says  the  juoverb,  and  now,  as  before,  I  include  all  duties  for 
you  under  that  one  !  '  Saunders  Mackaye,'  my  invaluable  country- 
man in  this  book,  is  nearly  perfect  ;  indeed  1  greatly  wonder  how 
you  did  contrive  to  manage  him — his  very  dialect  is  as  if  a  na- 
tive had  done  it,  and  the  whole  existence  of  the  rugged  old  hero 
is  a  wonderfully  splendid  and  coherent  piece  of  Scotch  bravura. 
In  both  of  your  women,  too,  I  find  some  grand  poetic  features; 
but  neither  of  them  is  worked  out  into  the  '  Daughter  of  the  Sun' 
she  might  have  been  ;  indeed,  nothing  is  worked  out  anywhere 
in  comparison  with  '  Saunders ; '  and  the  impression  is  of  a  fer- 
vid creation  still  left  half  chaotic.  This  is  my  literary  verdict,  both 
the  black  of  it  and  the  white.  ' 

"  Of  the  grand  social  and  moral  questions  we  will  say  nothing 
whatever  at  present :  any  time  within  the  next  two  centuries,  it  is 
like,  there  will  be  enough  to  say  about  them  !  On  the  whole,  you 
will  have  to  persist  ;  like  a  cannon-ball  that  is  shot,  you  will  have  to 
go  to  your  mark,  whatever  that  be.  I  stipulate  farther  that  you 
come  and  see  me  when  you  are  at  Chelsea  ;  and  that  you  pay  no 
attention  at  all  to  the  foolish  clamor  of  reviewers,  whether  laud- 
atory or  condemnatory. 

"Yours  with  true  wishes, 

"T.  Carlyle." 

The  publication  of  "Yeast"  brought  him  some  enemies  and 
many  correspondents  ;  and  more  than  one  "fast  man"  came  down 
from  London  to  open  his  heart  to  its  author  and  ask  advice.  In 
the  religious  world  the  Anglican  question  occupied  one  large  sec- 
tion of  the  Church,  and  the  tide  set  Rome-wards.  Clergymen 
wrote  to  him  to  ask  him  to  advise  them  how  to  save  members  of 
their  Hock  from  Popery ;  mothers  to  beg  him  to  try  and  rescue  their 
daughters  from  the  influence  of  Protestant  confessors ;  while  wo- 
aien  themselves  hovering  between  Rome  and  Anglicanism,  be- 
tween the  attractions  of  a  nunnery  and  the  monotonous  duties  of 
family  life,  laid  their  difficulties  before  the  author  of  the  "Saint's 
Tragedy."  He  who  shrank  on  principle  from  the  office  of  father- 
confessor  had  the  v  ork  thrust  upon  him  by  many  whom  he  never 
met  face  to  face  in  this  world,  and  whom  he  dared  not  refuse  to 
belp. 

The  labor  was  severe  to  a  man  who  felt  tlie  importance  of  such 
communications,  and  the  responsitility  of  giving  counsel,  as  in- 


134  Charles  Ki?igsley. 

tensely  as  he  iid ;  and  those  who  saw  the  daily  letters  on  his  stud) 
table  would  say  that  the  weight  of  such  correspondence  alone  wa» 
enough  to  wear  any  man  down,  who  had  not  in  addition  sennonj 
to  write,  books  to  compose,  a  parish  to  work,  and  a  pupil  to  teach. 
But  his  iron  energy,  coupled  with  a  deep  conscientiousness,  en- 
abled him  to  get  through  it.  "One  more  thing  done,"  at  would 
say,  "  thank  God,"  as  each  letter  was  written,  each  chapter  of  a 
book  or  page  of  sermon  dictated  to  his  wife;  "and  oh!  how 
blessed  it  will  be  when  it  is  all  over,  to  lie  down  in  that  deal 
churchyard." 

The  correspondence  increased  year  by  year,  as  each  fresh  book 
touched  and  stirred  fresh  hearts.  Officers  both  in  the  army  and 
navy  would  write  to  him — all  strangers — one  to  ask  his  opinion 
about  duelUng  ;  another  to  beg  him  to  recommend  or  write  a  ra- 
tional form  of  family  prayer  for  camp  or  hut ;  another  for  a  set  of 
prayers  to  be  used  on  board  ship  in  her  Majesty's  navy ;  others  on 
more  delicate  social  points  of  conscience  and  conduct,  which  the 
writers  would  confide  to  no  other  clergyman  ;  but  all  to  thank  him 
for  his  books.  The  atheist  dared  tell  him  of  his  doubts  ;  the  pro- 
fligate of  his  fall;  young  men  brought  up  to  go  into  Holy  Orders, 
but  filled  with  misgivings  about  the  Articles,  the  Creeds,  and,  more 
than  all,  on  the  question  of  endless  punishment,  would  pour  out  all 
their  difficuties  to  him;  and  many  a  noble  spirit  now  v/orking  as  a 
priest  and  pastor  in  the  Church  of  England  would  never  have 
taken  orders  but  for  Charles  Kings! ry. 


CHAPTER   X. 

1851. 
Aged  32. 

Opening  of  the  Great  Sxhit  tion— Attack  on  "Yeast"  ir.  the  "  Guardian  '  add 
Reply — Occurrence  in  a  London  Church — Goes  to  Germany — Letter  froni 
Mr.  John  Martineau. 

The  year  of  the  Great  Exhibition,  which  began  with  distress  and 
discontent  in  England,  and  ended  with  a  Revolution  in  Paris,  was 
a  notable  one  in  the  life  of  Charles  Kingsley.  His  parochial  work 
was  only  varied  by  the  addition  of  new  plans  of  draining  the  parish 
at  the  points  where  low  fever  had  prevailed  ;  which  he  success- 
fully carried  out  without  help  from  any  sanitary  board.  "  Hypa- 
tia"  was  begun  as  a  serial  in  "Eraser's  Magazine."  "Santa 
Maura  "  and  several  shorter  poems  were  written.  He  contributed 
to  the  "Christian  Socialist"  eight  papers  on  "Bible  Politics,  or 
God  justified  to  the  People,"  four  on  the  "  Firmley  Murder,"  three 
entitled  "The  Long  Game,"  a  few  ballads  and  sonnets,  and  "The 
Nun's  Pool,"  which  had  been  rejected  by  the  publishers  of  "Poli- 
tics." He  preached  two  sermons  in  London,  one  of  which  made 
him  notorious,  and  occasionally  he  attended  the  Conferences  of 
the  Promoters  of  Association.  He  crossed  the  Channel  for  the 
first  time.  His  friendship  with  Erederika  Bremer,  the  Swedish 
novelist,  and  with  Miss  Mitford,  date  from  this  year. 

In  January  he  writes  to  Mr.  Maurice  about  the  new  romance 
whici  was  dawning  upon  his  imagination. 

EVERSLEY,  January  16,  1851. 

•  A  thousand  thanks  for  all  your  advice  and  information,  which 
encourages  me  to  say  more.  I  don't  know  how  far  I  shall  be  able 
to  writ^  much  for  the  '  Christian  Socialist.'  Don't  fancy  that  I  am 
either  lazy  or  afraid.  But,  if  I  do  not  use  my  pen  to  the  uttermost 
in  earning  my  daily  bread,  I  shall  not  get  through  this  year.  I 
am  paying  off  the  loans  which  I  got  to  meet  the  expenses  of  re- 


I  30  Charles  Kings  ley. 

pairing  and  furnishing ;  but,  with  an  income  reduced  this  year  bj 
more  than  200/.,  having  given  up,  thank  God,  that  sinecure  clerk- 
ship, and  having  had  to  return  ten  per  cent,  of  my  tithes,  owing  to 
the  agricultural  distress,  I  have  also  this  year,  for  the  first  time,  the 
opportunity,  and  therefore  the  necessity,  of  supporting  a  good 
school.  My  available  income,  therefore,  is  less  than  400/.  I  can- 
not reduce  my  charities,  and  I  am  driven  either  to  give  up  my 
curate,  or  to  write,  and  either  of  these  alternatives,  with  the  in- 
creased parish  work,  for  I  have  got  either  lectures  or  night  school 
every  night  in  the  week,  and  three  services  on  Sunday,  will  demand 
niy  whole  time.  What  to  do  unless  1  get  pupils  I  know  not 
Tvfartineau  leaves  me  in  June. 

"  My  present  notion  is  to  write  a  historical  romance  of  the  be- 
ginning of  the  fifth  century,  which  has  been  breeding  in  my  head 
this  two  years.  But  how  to  find  time  I  know  not.  And  if  there 
is  a  storm  brewing,  of  course  I  shall  have  to  help  to  fight  the  Phil- 
istines. Would  that  I  had  wings  as  a  dove,  then  would  I  flee  away 
and  be  at  rest  !  I  have  written  this  selfish  and  egotistical  letter  to 
ask  for  your  counsel  ;  but  I  do  not  forget  that  you  have  your  own 
troLibles.  My  idea  in  the  romance  is  to  set  forth  Christianity  as 
the  only  really  democratic  creed,  and  philosophy,  above  all,  spir- 
itualism, as  the  most  exclusively  aristocratic  creed.  Such  has  been 
my  opinion  for  a  long  time,  and  what  I  have  been  reading  lately 
confirms  it  more  and  more.  Even  Synesius,  '  the  philosophic ' 
bishop,  is  an  aristocrat  by  the  side  of  Cyril.  It  seems  to  me  that 
such  a  book  might  do  good  just  now,  while  the  Scribes  and  Phari- 
sees, Christian  and  heathen,  are  saying,  '  This  people,  which 
knoweth  not  the  law,  is  accursed ! '  Of  English  subjects  I  can 
write  no  more  just  now.  I  have  exhausted  both  my  stock  and  my 
brain,  and  really  require  to  rest  it,  by  turning  it  to  some  new  field, 
in  which  there  is  richer  and  more  picturesque  life,  and  the  elements 
are  less  confused,  or  rather,  may  be  handled  more  in  the  mass 
than  English  ones  now.  1  have  long  wished  to  do  something  an- 
tique, and  get  out  my  thoughts  about  the  connection  of  the  old 
world  and  the  new  ;  Schiller's  '  Gods  of  Greece  '  expresses,  I  think, 
a  tone  of  feeling  very  common,  and  which  finds  its  vent  in  modem 
Neo-Platonism — Anythingarianism.  But  if  you  think  I  ought  not, 
I  will  not.     I  will  obey  your  order." 

TO   GEORGE    BRIMLEY,    ESQ. 

Monday,  October,  1 85 1. 

"  I  am  quite  astonished  at  the  steady-going,  respectable  people 
who  approve  more  or  less  of  '  Alton  Locke.'  It  was  but  the  other 
night,  at  the  Speaker's,  that  Sir  ***  ***^  considered  one 
of  the  safest  Whig  traditionists  in  England,  gave  in  his  adher- 
ence to  the  book  in  the  kindest  terms.     Both  the  Marshalls  have 


Teetota  lism.  137 

done  the  same — so  has  T.ord  Ashburton.  So  have,  strange  to  say, 
more  than  one  ultra-respectable  High-Tory  Squire — so  goes  the 
world.  If  you  do  anything  above  party,  the  true-hearted  ones  of  all 
parties  sympathize  with  you.  And  all  I  want  to  do  is  to  awaken 
the  good  men  of  all  opinions  to  the  necessity  of  shaking  hands  and 
laying  their  heads  together,  and  to  look  for  the  day  when  tl:e  bad 
of  all  parties  will  get  their  deserts,  which  they  will,  very  accurately, 
before  Mr.  Carlyle's  friends,  'The  Powers'  and  'The  Destinies, 
have  done  with  them. 

"  The  article  I  have  not  seen,  and  don't  intend  to.  There  is  no 
use  for  a  hot-tempered  and  foul-mouthed  man  like  myself  praying 
not  to  be  led  into  temptation,  and  then  reading,  voluntarily,  at- 
tacks on  himself  from  the  firm  of  Wagg,  Wenham,  and  Co.  But  if 
you  think  I  ought  to  answer  the  attack  formally,  pray  tell  me  so. 

"  Hypatia  grows,  little  darling,  and  I  am  getting  very  fond  of 
her  ;  but  the  period  is  very  dark,  folks  having  been  given  to  lying 
then,  as  well  as  now,  besides  being  so  blind  as  not  to  see  the  mean- 
ing of  their  own  time  (perhaps,  though,  we  don't  of  ours),  and  so 
put  down,  not  what  we  should  like  to  know,  but  what  they  liked 
to  remember.  Nevertheless  there  are  materials  for  a  grand  book. 
And  if  I  fail  in  it,  I  may  as  well  give  up  writing — perhaps  the  best 
thing  for  me  ;  though,  thanks  to  abuse-puffs,  my  books  sell  pretty 
steadily." 

The  "  Christian  Socialist "  movement  had  been  severely  at- 
tacked in  an  article  in  the  "  Edinburgh"  and  in  the  "Quarterly;" 
in  both  articles  Communism  and  Socialism  were  spoken  of  as 
identical,  and  the  author  of  "  Alton  Locke  "  was  pointed  at  as  the 
chief  offender. 

Among  other  topics  discussed  in  the  "Christian  Socialist"  was 
"  Teetotalism."  While  Mr.  Kingsley  argued  against  it,  and  for 
the  right  of  the  poor  man  to  wholesome  (and  therefore  not  public- 
house)  beer,  he  was  for  ever  urging  on  landlords,  magistrates,  and 
householders  to  make  a  stand  against  the  increasing  number  of 
public-houses  and  consequent  increase  of  drunkenness  and  de- 
moralization, which  paralyzed  the  work  of  the  clergy,  by  refusing 
''cences  to  fresh  public-houses,  and  above  all  by  withholding  spirit 
licences.  He  saw  no  hope  for  country  parishes  unless  the  number 
of  public-houses  could  be  legally  restricted  by  the  area  of  the  par- 
ish and  the  amount  of  population  to  the  lowest  possible  number, 
and  those  placed  under  the  most  vigilant  police  superintendence, 
especially  in  the  outlying  districts  where  they  are  nests  of  poachers 
and  bad  characters,  and  utterly  ruinous   to   the  boys,  girls,  and 


138  Charles  Kings  ley. 

young    men   who    frequent    them   from    the   moment    they    leava 
ijchool. 

TO    THOMAS    HUGHES,    ESQ. 

".  .  .  .  You  are  green  in  cottoning  to  me  about  our '48 
mess.  Because  why  ?  I  lost  nothing — 1  risked  nothing.  You 
fellows  worked  like  bricks,  spent  money,  and  got  midshipman's 
half-pay  (nothing  a  day  and  find  yourself),  and  monkey's  allowance 
(more  kicks  than  halfpence).  I  risked  no  money  ;  'cause  why,  I 
had  none  ;  but  made  money  out  of  the  movement,  and  fame  too. 
I've  often  thought  what  a  poor  creature  I  was.  I  made  ^j^iso  by 
'  Alton  Locke,'  and  never  lost  a  farthing  ;  and  I  got,  not  in  spite 
of,  but  by  the  rows,  a  name  and  a  standing  with  many  a  one  who 
would  never  have  heard  of  me  otherwise,  and  I  should  have  been 
a  mendicant  if  I  had  holloaed  when  I  got  a  facer,  while  I  was  win- 
ning by  the  cross,  though  I  didn't  mean  to  fight  one.  No.  And 
if  I'd  had  ;^ioo,ooo,  I'd  have,  and  should  have,  staked  and  lost  it 
all  in  1848-50.  I  should,  Tom,  for  my  heart  was  and  is  in  i"-,  and 
you'll  see  it  will  beat  yet ;  but  we  ain't  the  boys,  we  don't  see  but 
half  the  bull's  eye  yet,  and  don't  see  at  all  the  policeman  which  is 
a-going  on  his  beat  behind  the  bull's  eye,  and  no  thanks  to  us. 
Still,  some  somedever,  it's  in  the  fates,  that  association  is  the  pure 
caseine,  and  must  be  eaten  by  the  human  race  if  it  would  save  its 
soul  alive,  which,  indeed,  it  will ;  only  don't  you  think  me  a  good 
fellow  for  not  crying  out,  when  I  never  had  more  to  do  than  scratch 
myself,  and  away  went  the  fleas.  But  you  all  were  real  brick.*  ; 
and  if  you  were  riled,  why  let  him  that  is  without  sin  cast  the  first 
stone,  or  let  me  cast  it  for  him,  and  see  if  1  don't  hit  him  in  the 
eye. 

"Now  to  business;  I  have  had  a  sorter  kinder  sample  day. 
Up  at  five,  to  see  a  dying  man ;  ought  to  have  been  up  at  two,  but 
Ben  King,  the  rat-catcher,  who  came  to  call  lue,  was  taken  ner- 
vous !  ! !  and  didn't  make  row  enough  ;  was  from  5.30  to  6.30  with 
the  most  dreadful  case  of  agony — insensible  to  me,  but  not  to  his 
pain.  Came  home,  got  a  wash  and  a  pipe,  and  again  to  him  at 
eight  Found  him  insensible  to  his  own  pain,  with  dilated  pupils, 
dying  of  pressure  of  the  brain — going  any  moment.  Prayed  the 
commendatory  prayers  over  him,  ar.d  started  for  the  river  with  W, 
Fished  all  the  morning  in  a  roaring  N.E.  gale,  with  the  dreadful 
agonized  face  between  me  and  the  river,  pondering  on  T/ie  mysterj'. 
Killed  eight  on  '  March  brown,'  a  '  governor,'  by  drowning  the  flies 
and  taking  'em  out  gently  to  see  if  aught  was  there,  which  is  the 
only  dodge  in  a  north-easter.  'Cause  why?  The  water  is  warmer 
than  the  air — ergo,  fishes  don't  like  to  put  their  noses  out  o'  doors, 
and  feeds  at  home  down  stairs.  It  is  the  only  wrinkle,  Tom.  The 
<;aptain  fished  a-top,  and  caught  but  three  all  day.     They  weren'f 


Notes  oil  Fislihi^.  139 

going  to  caicli  a  coIl.  in  their  heads  to  \  lease  him  or  any  uian. 
Clouds  burn  np  at  i  p.m.  I  put  on  a  minnow,  and  kill  three 
more  ;  I  should  have  had  lols,  but  for  the  image  of  the  dirty  hick- 
ory stick,  which  would  '  walk  the  waters  like  a  thing  of  life,'  just 
ahead  of  my  miimow.  Mem.  never  fish  with  the  sun  in  your  back  ; 
it's  bad  enough  with  a  fly,  but  with  a  minnow  its  strychnine  and 
prussic  acid.  My  eleven  weighed  together  four  and  a-half  pounds, 
three  to  the  pound  ;  not  good,  considering  I  had  passed  many  a 
two-pound  fish,  I  know. 

•*  Corollary. — Brass  minnow  don't  suit  the  water.  Where  is 
your  wonderful  minnow  ?  Send  me  one  down,  or  else  a  horn  one, 
which  I  believes  in  desperate  ;  but  send  me  something  before 
Tuesday,  and  I  will  send  you  P.O.O.  Horn  minnow  looks  Hke  a 
gudgeon,  which  is  the  pure  caseine.  One  pounder  I  caught  to-day 
on  the  '  March  brown,'  womited  his  wittles,  which  was  rude,  but 
instructive  ;  and  among  worms  was  a  gudgeon  three  inches  long 
and  more.     Blow  minnows — gudgeon  is  the  thing. 

"  Came  off  the  water  at  three.  ■  Found  my  man  alive,  and,  thank 
God,  quiet.  Sat  with  him,  and  thought  him  going  once  or  twice. 
What  a  mystery  that  long,  insensible  death-struggle  is  !  Why 
should  they  be  so  long  about  it  ?  Then  had  to  go  to  Hartley 
Row  for  an  Archdeadon's  Sunday-school  meeting — three  hours 
useless  (I  fear)  speechifying  and  shop  ;  but  the  archdeacon  is  a 
good  man,  and  works  like  a  brick  beyond  his  office.  Got  back  at 
10.30,  and  sit  writing  to  you.  So  goes  one's  day.  All  manner  of 
incongruous  things  to  do,  and  the  very  incongruity  keeps  one 
beany  and  jolly.  Your  letter  was  delightful.  1  read  part  of  it  to 
W.,  who  says  you  are  the  best  fellow  on  earth,  to  which  I  agree. 
"  So  no  more  from  your  sleepy  and  tired, 

"  C.  KiNGSLEY." 


TO    HIS    WIFE. 


EvERSLEY  Rectory. 


"  Friday.  Such  a  ducking  !  such  a  storm  !  I  am  glad  you  were 
not  at  home  for  that  only.  We  were  up  fishing  on  the  great  lake 
at  Bramshill  :  the  morning  soft,  rich,  and  lowering,  with  a  low,  fall- 
ing glass.  I  have  been  j^rophesying  thunder  for  two  or  three  days. 
Perch  would  not  bite.  I  went  to  see  E.  H.  ;  and  read  and  prayed 
vviih  her.  How  one  gets  to  love  consumptive  patients.  She  seems 
in  a  most  happy,  holy  state  of  mind,  thanks  to  Smith.  Then  I  went 
on  to  L.  G.  ;  sat  a  long  time  with  her,  and  came  back  to  the  lake 
— day  burning,  or  rather  melting,  the  country  looking  glorious. 
The  day  as  hot  without  sun,  as  it  generally  is  with.  There  appeared 
a  black  storm  over  Reading.  I  found  the  luckless  John  had 
hooked  a  huge  jack,  which  broke  everything  in  a  moment,  and 
went  off  with  all  his  spinning  tackle  which  he  prizes  so.  Then  the 
storm  began  to  work  round  in  that  mysterious  way  storms  will,  and 


r40  Charles  Kings  ley. 

gather  from  every  quarter,  and  t.ie  wind  which  had  been  dead  calm 
S.E.,  blew  N.E.,  N.,  W.,  and  lastly  as  it  is  doing  now,  and  always 
does  after  these  explosions,  S.W.  And  then  began  such  a  sight, 
and  we  on  the  island  in  the  middle  of  the  great  lake  !  The  light- 
ning was  close,  and  we  seemed  to  strike  the  ground  near  Sand- 
liurst  again  and  again,  and  the  crackle  and  roar  and  spit  and 
grumble  over  our  heads  was  awful.  I  have  not  been  in  such  a  storm 
for  four  years.  And  it  rained — fancy  it !  Wo  walked  home  after 
an  hour's  ducking.  I  gave  John  a  warm  bath  and  hot  wine  and 
water,  for  I  did  not  feel  sure  of  his  strength.  I  am  not  ashamed  to 
say  that  I  prayed  a  great  deal  during  the  storm,  for  we  were  in  a 
very  dangerous  place  in  an  island  under  high  trees ;  and  it  seemed 
dreadful  never  to  see  you  again.  I  count  the  hours  till  Monday. 
Tell  the  chicks  I  found  a  real  wild  duck's  nest  on  the  island,  full  of 
eggs,  and  have  brought  one  home  to  hatch  it  under  a  hen  !  Kiss 
them  for  me.  We  dined  at  the  T.'s  last  night,  and  after  dinner  went 
birds'  nesting  in  the  garden,  and  found  plenty.  Tell  Rose  a  bull- 
finch's, with  eggs,  and  a  chaffinch's,  and  an  oxeye's,  and  a  thrush's, 
and  a  greenfinch's;  and  then  Ball  and  I,  to  the  astonishment  and 
terror  of  old  Mrs.  Campbell,  climbed  to  the  top  of  the  highest  fir 
tree  there,  to  hang  our  hats  on  the  top. 

The  opening  of  the  Great  Exhibition  was  a  matter  of  deep  in 
terest  to  him,  not  only  for  its  own  sake,  but  for  that  of  the  Great 
Prince  who  was  the  prime  mover  in  the  undertaking.  On  enter- 
ing the  building  he  was  moved  to  tears;  to  him  it  was  like  g  oing 
into  a  sacred  place,  not  a  mere  show  as  so  many  felt  it,  and  still 
less  a  mere  gigantic  shop,  in  which  wares  were  displayed  for  s  jlfish 
purposes,  and  from  mere  motives  of  trade  competition.  The 
science,  the  art,  the  noble  ideas  of  universal  peace,  umversal 
brotherhood  it  was  meant  to  shadow  forth  and  encourage,  <  xcited 
him  intensely,  while  the  feeling  that  the  realization  of  thosf.  great 
and  noble  ideas  was  as  yet  so  far  off,  and  that  these  achievi  ments 
of  physical  science  were  mere  forecastings  of  a  great  but  distant 
future,  saddened  him  as  profoundly.  Four  days  after  the  oi.>ening, 
he  preached  to  a  London  congregation  in  St.  Margaret's,  West- 
minster, on  Psalm  Ixviii.  i8,  and  Eph.  iv.  8  :  "  IVhen  He  ascended 
up  on  high,  He  led  captivity  captive.,  and  received  gifts  for  men^ 
yea,  even  for  His  enemies,  that  the  Lord  God  might  dwell  among 
them,"  he  startled  his  hearers  by  contrasting  the  wide  spread  un- 
belief of  the  present  day  in  God,  as  the  Fount  of  all  science,  all 
art,  all  the  intelligence  of  the  nation,  with  the  simple  faith  of  oiu 
forefathers. 


A itack  on  "  Veasf. "  14^ 

ill  the  month  of  May  there  was  a  review  of  his  "  Yeast  "  in  the 
"Guardian"  by  a  well-known  Oxford  graduate,  a  sl'-ong  partisan 
of  the  Anglican  party.  The  review  was  anonymous,  and  con- 
tained very  grave  charges  against  the  b  :)ok  ai.d  its  writer — of 
heresy — of  encouraging  profligacy,  &c.,  &c. 

Their  effect  was  to  leave  a  general  impression  that  the  book  in- 
culcated the  vilest  principles,  and  most  pernicious  doctrines,  while 
not  a  single  quotation  from  it  was  given,  so  as  to  afford  the  readers 
of  the  review  an  opportunity  of  judging  for  themselves. 

Mr.  King'oley  had  hitherto  made  it  a  rule  not  to  answer  news- 
paper attacks  on  himself,  especially  those  of  the  religious  press, 
but  these  charges  being  beyond  all  precedent,  he  repudiated  them 
in  the  following  indignant  words  : 

TO    THE    EDITOR    OF   THE    "  GUARDIAN." 

May,  1851. 

"  Sir, 

"  Having  lived  for  several  years  under  the  belief  that  the  Editor 
of  the  '  Guardian '  was  a  gentleman  and  a  Christian,  I  am  bound 
to  take  for  granted  that  you  have  not  yourself  read  the  book  called 
'  Yeast,'  which  you  have  allowed  to  be  reviewed  in  your  columns. 
This  answer  therefore  is  addressed,  not  to  you,  but  to  your  re- 
viewer ;  and  I  have  a  right  to  expect  that  you  will,  as  an  act  of 
common  fairness,  insert  it. 

"  I  most  thoroughly  agree  with  the  reviewer  that  he  has  not  mis- 
understood me  ;  on  the  contrary,  he  sees  most  clearly  the  gist  of 
the  book,  as  is  proved  by  his  carefully  omitting  any  mention  what- 
soever of  two  questions  connected  with  a  character  whose  existence 
is  passed  over  in  silence,  which  form  the  very  pith  and  moral  of 
the  whole  book.  I  know  well  enough  why  he  has  ignored  them  ; 
because  they  were  the  very  ones  which  excited  his  wrath. 

"  But  he  makes  certain  allegations  agaii.st  me  which  I  found  it 
somewhat  difficult  to  answer,  from  their  very  preposterousness,  till, 
in  Pascal's  Fifteenth  Provincial  Letter,  I  fell  on  an  argument 
which  a  ceitain  Capuchin  Father,  Valerian,  found  successful  against 
the  Jesuits,  and  wnich  seems  to  suit  the  reviewer  exactly.  I  shall 
therefore  proceed  to  ai)ply  it  to  the  two  accusations  which  concern 
me  most  nearly  as  a  churchman. 

"  I.  He  asserts  that  I  say  that  '  it  is  common  sense  and  logic  to 
make  ourselves  children  of  God  by  believing  that  we  are  so  when 
wc  are  not.'  Sir,  you  and  your  readers  will  hardly  believe  me 
when  I  tell  you  that  this  is  the  exact  and  formal  opposition  to 
what  I  say,  that  the  words  which  he  irisquotes,  by  leaving  out  the 
context  and  the  note  of  interrogation,  occur  in  a  scon^fu!  reductit 


142  Charles  Kings  ley, 

ad  abstirdum  of  the  very  doctrine  which  he  wantonly  irriijutes  to 
nie,  an  appeal  to  common  sense  and  logic  against  and  not  for  the 
lie  of  the  Genevan  School.  1  have  a  right  to  use  the  word  '  wan. 
tonly,'  for  he  cannot  say  that  he  las  misunderstood  me;  he  has 
refused  to  allow  me  that  plea,  and  I  refuse  to  allow  it  to  him.  In- 
deed, I  cannot,  for  the  passage  is  as  plain  as  daylight,  no  school- 
boy could  misunderstand  it ;  and  every  friend  to  whom  I  have 
aljown  his  version  of  it  has  received  it  with  the  same  laughter  and 
indignation  with  which  I  did,  and  felt  with  me,  that  the  only 
answer  to  be  given  to  such  dishonesty  was  that  of  Father  Valerian, 
'  Mentiris  iinpudentissime^ 

"2.  So  with  the  assertion,  that  the  book  'regards  the  Catholic 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  as  the  same  thing  with  that  of  the  Vedas 
Neo-Platonists,'  &c.  &c, ;  or  considers  'a  certain  amount  of  youth- 
ful  profligacy  as  doing  no  real  and  permanent  harm  to  the  charac- 
ter— perhaps  strengthening  it — for  a  useful  and  even  religious  life  j 
and  that  the  existence  of  the  passions  is  a  proof  that  they  are  to 
be  gratified.'  Sir,  I  shall  not  quote  passages  in  disproof  of  these 
calumnies,  for  if  I  did  I  should  have  to  quote  half  the  book.  I 
shall  simply  reply,  with  Father  Valerian,  '•  Me?itiris  impudetitis^ 
sime! 

"  I  shall  enter  into  no  further  defence  of  the  book ;  I  have  no 
doubt  of  there  being  many  errors  and  defects  in  it.  1  shall  be 
most  thankful  to  have  them  pomted  out,  and  to  correct  them  most 
patiently.  But  one  thing  I  may  say,  to  save  trouble  hereaftei',  that 
whosoever  henceforth,  either  explicitly  or  by  insinuation,  says  that 
I  do  not  hold  and  believe  ex  animo,  and  in  the  simple  and  literal 
sense,  all  the  doctrines  of  the  Catholic  and  Apostolic  Church  of 
England,  as  embodied  in  her  Liturgy  or  Articles,  shall  have  no 
answer  from  me  but  Father  Valerian's  Alcntiris  iinpudentissime. 
"I  am,  Sir, 

"  Your  obedient  and  faithful  servant, 

"The  Author  of  'Yeast.'  " 

In  speaking  of  this  correspondence,  Mr.  Maurice  sa}  s  : 

"  Jf  /  had  been  accused  of  ])rofligacy  and  heresy,  as  Mr.  Kings, 
ley  has  been  in  the  '  Guardian,'  I  believe  I  should  have  felt  much 
more  indignation  than  he  has,  though  I  might  have  expressed  il 
with  less  simphcity  and  brevity.  If  a  mai:  in  a  mask,  calling  him- 
self a  '\\'e,'  tells  a  clergyman  that  he  has  been  all  his  life  uttering 
a  lie,  that  his  whole  i^rofessions  before  God  and  man  are  a  lie,  that 
he  is  an  advocate  for  profligacy  when  he  professes  to  make  men 
moral,  a  deliberate  teacher  of  heresy  when  he  knows  that  his  in- 
most desire  is  to  preach  the  Catholic  faith,  and  when  he  knows: 
that  he  expresses  that  desire  most  loudly,  not  in  the  presence  of 
dignitaries  who  might  patronize   iiim   for    it,    but   of  intidels   who 


Effect  of  '  *  Y^cast: "  143 

would  despise  him  for  it,  it  does  not  seem  very  strange  that  siicc 
a  clergyman  should  say  in  Latin  or  English,  Sir  We  !  thou  thyself 
tellest  a  lie " 

Some  may  think  it  needless  to  revive  these  old  conlro.  ersies, 
Sut  attacks  on  his  moral  teaching  in  this  case,  ind  at  a  latei 
period  on  "  Hypatia,"  implying  as  they  did,  a  want  of  moral  prin-. 
ciple  in  himself,  and  the  encouragement  of  it  in  others,  touched 
Mr.  Kingsley  on  his  tenderest  point,  and  cannot  be  passed  over, 
if  only  to  show  those  who  know  what  the  results  of  his  work  have 
been,  and  have  seen  the  different  tone  taken  since  by  the  religious 
press  with  regard  to  him  and  his  writings,  what  sore  battles  he  had 
at  one  time  to  fight,  what  bitter  insults  he  had  to  stand,  while 
laboring  day  and  night  for  the  good  of  others.  But  when  once  the 
moment  and  the  expression  of  righteous  indignation  was  over,  he 
had  a  wonderful  power  of  putting  attacks  and  the  individuals  who 
made  them,  out  of  his  mind,  bearing  no  malice,  and  going  on  his 
way.  "Life  is  too  hard  v/ork  in  itself,"  he  would  say,  "  to  let  one 
stop  to  hate  and  suspect  people." 

The  "  Guardian"  replied  again,  reiterating  its  charges,  but  hap- 
pily there  was  another  side  to  the  question.  Only  three  weeks 
before  these  attacks  he  had  received  the  following  among  many 
other  testimonies  to  the  moral  influence  of  "  Yeast,"  on  men 
whose  hearts  could  not  be  touched  by  teachers  of  a  narrower 
school : 

April  2,  1851. 

"  Dear  Sir, 

"  I  have  just  finished  '  Yeast'  in  ex/enso,  having  only  skimmed 
it  in  Fraser,  and,  fresh  from  the  book,  1  cannot  resist  communi 
eating  to  you  my  heartfelt  thanks  for  it.  You  will  not  care  about 
whether  /  thank  you  or  not ;  never  mind,  I  shall  relieve  myself  by 
■writing,  and  you  at  any  rate  will  not  feel  insulted.  I  believe  yon 
have  taken  up  the  right  ground  in  standing  firmly  by  the  spirit  of 
Christianity,  and  the  divineness  of  Christ's  mission,  and  showing 
the  people  how  they  are  their  best  friends  and  the  truest  reformers. 
I  have  been  as  far  as  most  people  into  the  Kingdom  of  the  Ever 
lasting  No,  and  had  nearly,  in  my  intellectual  misery,  taken  up 
with  blank  Atheism  and  the  Reasoner  ;  and  should  have  done  so, 
had  not  my  heart  rebelled  against  my  head,  and  flooding  in  upon 
me  reflections  of  earlier,  purer  days,  brighter  days  of  Faith,  bade 
roe  pause.  For  six  months  I  have  been  looking  back  to  Chris- 
tianity, my  heart  impellmg  me  towards  it ;  my  head  urging  in? 


r44  Charles  Kingsley. 

into  farther  cimmerias.  I  wanted  some  authoritative  word  to 
ronfirui  my  heart,  but  could  not  meet  with  it.  I  read  orthodox 
books  of  argument,  of  persuasion,  of  narrative,  but  I  found  they 
nnly  increased  my  antagonism  to  Christianity.  And  I  was  very 
miserable — as  I  believe  all  earnest  men  must  be  when  they  find 
themselves  Gnd-abandoned  in  times  like  these — when,  picking  up 
your  '  Christian  Socialist,'  I  read  your  '  God  justified  to  the 
People,'  and  felt  that  here  now  was  a  man,  not  a  mere  empty 
evangelical  tub  thumper  (as  we  of  the  North  call  Ranters),  but  a 
bona  fide  man,  with  a  man's  intellect,  a  man  of  genius,  and  a 
scholar,  and  yet  who  did  not  spit  upon  his  Bible,  or  class  it  with 
Goethe  and  Dante,  but  could  have  sympathies  with  all  the  ferment 
of  the  age  ;  be  a  Radical  Reformer  without  being  a  vague  Denier, 
3,  vaguer  '  Spiritualist,'  as  our  '  Leader '  friends  have  it,  or  an  utter 
Atheist.  If  this  man,  on  further  acquaintance,  prove  what  I  sus- 
pect him  to  be,  here  is  the  confirmation  I  desire.  Impelled  by 
tnis,  and  by  the  accounts  I  gathered  of  you  from  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Carlyle,  I  devoured  '  Yeast  ; '  and  '  Alton  Locke,'  I  am  now  in 
the  middle  of  (I  am  no  novel  reader,  which  must  be  my  excuse 
for  being  so  late  in  the  field).  I  find  that  I  am  quite  correct,  that 
I  have  not  exaggerated  your  capacity  at  all  ;  and  having,  day  and 
night,  meditated  on  what  you  have  to  say,  I  feel  that  the  con- 
firmation I  have  got  from  you  is  sufficient.  But  I  have  another 
better  confirmation  in  my  own  heart.  I  feel  as  if  I  had  emerged 
from  a  mephitic  cavern  into  the  open  day.  In  the  midst  of  worldly 
reverses,  such  as  I  never  before  experienced,  I  feel  a  mental 
serenity  I  never  before  knew  ;  can  see  life  and  my  role  in  life, 
clear  and  definite  for  the  first  time,  through  all  manner  of  inter- 
vening entanglements. 

"  I  know  not  by  what  right  I  make  you  my  father  confessor,  but 
I  feel  strangely  drawn  towards  you,  and  even  at  the  risk  of  being 
deemed  impertinent,  nmst  send  this  rambling  missive  to  thank  you 
and  to  bless  you  for  having  helped  in  the  light  and  the  leaven  to  a 
sad  yeasty  spirit  hitherto. 


Iir  the  summer  of  185 1  several  London  clergymen  arranged  to 
biiC  courses  of  lectures  specially  addressed  to  the  working  men, 
«il.o  came  in  numbers  to  see  the  Great  Exhibition.  One  cf  these 
clergymen,  whose  church  was  in  the  neighborhood  of  a  lecture- 
hall  much  frequented  by  working  men  of  atheistic  views,  begged 
Mr.  Maurice  to  take  part  :n  his  course  of  lectures  and  (once  more 
to  quote  Mr.  Hughes's  words)  : 

»*  to  ask   Kingsley  to   do   so  also;  assuring  Mr.  Maurice  that  he 
*had  been  reading  Kingsley's  work^  with  the  greatest  interest,  and 


Occiirrence  in  a  London  Church.  145 

earnestly  desired  to  secure  him  as  one  of  his  lecturers.'  '  I  prom- 
ised to  mention  this  request  to  him,'  Mr.  Maurice  says,  '  thougli  I 
knew  he  rarely  came  to  London,  and  seldom  preached  except  in 
his  own  parish.  He  agreed,  though  at  some  inconvenience,  that 
he  \\ould  preach  a  sermon  on  the  Message  of  the  Church  to  the 
Laboring  Man.  I  suggested  the  subject  to  him.  The  incumbent 
intimated  the  most  cordial  approval  of  it.  He  had  asked  us,  not 
cnly  with  a  previous  knowledge  of  our  published  writings,  but 
expressly  because  he  had  that  knowledge.  I  pledge  you  my  word 
that  no  questions  were  asked  as  to  what  we  were  going  to  say,  and 
no  guarantees  given.  Mr.  Kingsley  took  precisely  that  view  of 
the  message  of  the  Church  to  laboring  men  Avhich  every  reader  of^ 
his  books  would  have  expected  him  to  take.' 

"Kingsley  took  his  text  from  Luke  iv.  verses  18  to  21  :  'The 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon  me,  because  He  hath  anointed  me  to 
preach  the  gospel  to  the  poor,'  &c.  What  then  was  that  gospel  ? 
Kingsley  starts  at  once  with — '  I  assert  that  the  business  for  which 
Ciod  sends  a  Christian  priest  in  a  Christian  nation  is,  to  preach 
freedom,  equality,  and  brotherhood,  in  the  fullest,  deepest,  widest 
meaning  of  those  three  great  words ;  that  in  as  far  as  he  so  does, 
he  is  a  true  priest,  doing  his  Lord's  work  with  His  Lord's  blessing 
on  him  ;  that  in  as  far  as  he  does  not  he  is  no  priest  at  all,  but  a 
traitor  to  God  and  man  ; '  and  again,  '  I  say  that  these  words  ex- 
press the  very  pith  and  marrow  of  a  priest's  business  ;  I  say  that 
they  preach  freedom,  equality,  and  brotherhood,  to  rich  and  poor 
for  ever  and  ever.'  Then  he  goes  on  to  warn  his  hearers  how  there 
IS  always  a  counterfeit  in  this  world  of  the  noblest  message  and 
teaching. 

"  Thus  there  are  two  freedoms — the  false,  where  a  man  is  free  to 
do  what  he  likes  ;  the  true,  where  a  man  is  free  to  do  what  he 
ought. 

"  Two  equalities — the  false,  which  reduces  all  intellects  and  all 
characters  to  a  dead  level,  and  gives  the  same  power  to  the  bad  as 
to  the  good,  to  the  wise  as  to  the  foolish,  ending  thus  in  practice 
in  the  grossest  inequality ;  the  true,  wherein  each  man  has  equal 
j)ower,  to  educate  and  use  whatever  faculties  or  talents  God  has 
given  him,  be  they  less  or  more.  This  is  the  divine  equality 
which  the  church  proclaims,  and  nothing  else  proclaims  as  she 
does. 

"Two  brotherhoods — the  false,  where  a  man  chooses  who  shall 
be  his  brothers,  and  whom  he  will  treat  as  such  ;  the  true,  in  which 
a  man  believes  that  all  are  his  brothers,  not  by  the  will  of  the  flesh, 
or  the  will  of  man,  but  by  the  will  of  God,  whose  children  they 
all  are  alike.  The  church  has  three  special  possessions  and 
treasures.  The  Bible,  which  proclaims  man's  freedom,  Bai)tism 
his  equaUty,  the  Lord's  Supper  his  brotherhood." — (Preface  to 
'Alton  Locke'). 
10 


146  Charles  Kings  ley. 

The  sernion  was  listened  to  with  profound  attention  by  a  large 
congregation,  .n  which  were  many  working  men.  But  at  its  close, 
just  as  the  preacher  was  about  to  give  the  blessing,  the  incumbent 
rose  in  the  reading-desk  and  declared,  that  while  he  agreed  with 
nuich  that  jad  been  said  by  the  preacher,  it  was  his  painful  duty 
to  add  that  he  believed  much  to  be  dangerous  and  much  untrue. 

The  excitement  of  the  congregation  was  intense ;  the  working 
men  could  with  difficuly  be  kept  quiet,  and  to  a  man  of  tJ-ie 
preacher's  vehement  temperament  it  must  have  required  a  great 
effort  not  to  reply.  He  only  bowed  his  head,  and  with  deepened 
soleianity  came  down  from  the  pulpit,  passed  straight  through  th<> 
crowd  that  thronged  him  with  outstretched  hands,  and  an  eagei 
"God  bless  you,  sir,"  on  their  lips,  and  went  into  the  vestry,  where 
his  friends  gathered  round  him  to  express  their  sympathy,  and  to 
take  the  sermon  from  him  that  it  might  be  printed  exactly  as  it  was 
written.  '•  Those,"  said  Mr.  Maurice,  "  who  observed  the  solem- 
nity of  Mr.  Kingsley's  manner  while  he  was  delivering  his  sermon, 
still  more  when  he  was  praying  with  the  congregation,  and  blessing 
them,  will  believe  that  the  thought  of  having  unwittingly  made 
himself  a  stumbling-block  to  his  fellow-men,  was  infinitely  more 
bitter  to  him  than  any  mere  personal  insult  which  he  was  called 
upon  to  endure." 

"You  will  have  heard  ere  this,"  writes  a  friend  to  Mrs.  Kingsley 
the  day  following,  "  all  about  the  strange  event  of  last  night.      .     . 
Nothing  could  justify  the  violation  of  church  order  and  de- 
cency which  was  committed Thank  God,  thank  Him 

on  your  knees,  that  Charles  did  not  answer  a  single  word  ;  if  he 
had,  I  do  not  know  what  might  not  have  happened.  Robertson 
and  Hansard  had  severally  to  quiet  knots  of  working  men,  who 
were  beginning  to  hiss  or  otherwise  testify  their  disapproval.  A 
word  from  Charles,  or,  indeed,  from  any  one  on  his  behalf,  mighJ. 
■ave  raised  such  a  storm  as  God  only  could  have  quelled.     . 

"  What  the  consequences  of  the  whole  thing  may  be,  none,  1 
jupi)Ose,  can  tell;  but  they  are  in  God's  hands,  and  He  knows 
best,  and  makes  all  things  work  together  for  good  for  us  if  we  truly 
(ear  Him.  Charles,  I  think,  feels  that  it  is  his  only  policy  to  keep 
quiet — and  so  must  his  friends  for  the  present.  Tell  him  old  Lum- 
ley  is  showing  hiinself  a  man,  and  will  be  extremely  glad  to  i)ublisl) 
the  seriiioi'i " 

Mr.  Kingsley  returned  to  Eversley  exhausted  and  depressed,  and 
in  the  meantime  the  storm  burst.     A  ler\ding  morning  paper  began 


Sympathy  of  Working  Alen.  147 

the  attack,  with  an  article,  which  being  full  of  inaccuracies,  made 
its  lue  impression  on  those  who  did  not  know  the  facts,  and  who 
wero  already  strongly  prejudiced  against  the  "  Apostle  of  Socialism." 

This  was  followed  by  a  letter  from  the  Bishop  of  London  (Dr. 
liloomfield),  who  hearing  of  the  disturbance,  wrote  to  Mr.  Kingsley 
to  express  his  displeasure,  and  forbade  him  to  preach  in  London. 
Mr.  Kingsley  replied  most  respectfully,  requesting  his  lordship  to 
suspend  his  judgment  till  he  had  read  the  sermon.  Meanwhile 
letters  of  sympathy  poured  in  from  all  quarters,  from  a  few  of  the 
clergy,  from  many  of  the  laity,  and  from  numbers  of  working 
men  There  was  a  meeting  of  working  men  on  Kennington  Com- 
mon, and  an  expression  of  their  warm  allegiance  and  sympathy. 
A  proposal  was  also  made  before  the  bishop's  prohibition  was  with- 
drawn, to  induce  Mr.  Kingsley  to  start  a  free  church  independent 
of  episcopal  rule,  with  a  promise  of  a  huge  following.  It  is  need- 
less to  say  he  did  not  entertain  this  proposal  for  a  moment. 

In  the  meantime  the  sermon  was  printed,  and  a  copy  sent  to  the 
Bishop,  who  wrote  at  once  to  ask  Mr.  Kingsley  to  come  up  and 
see  him  at  London  House  ;  and  after  a  kind  reception  he  withdrew 
his  pronibition,  and  in  a  fortnight  Mr.  Kingsley  preached  at  the 
parish  church  of  Chelsea. 

Before  the  meeting  on  Kennington  Common,  the  secretary  of 
the  John  Street  Lecture  Hall,  where  the  principal  audience  was 
composed  of  Chartists,  free  thinkers,  and  followers  of  Strauss,  wrote 
to  offer  Mr.  Kingsley  the  use  of  their  lecture  hall,  which  he  de- 
clined in  the  following  words  : 

EvERSLEY,  June  26,  1851. 

"  I  have  conferred  with  my  friends  on  their  willingness  to  give 
lectures  in  John  Street,  and  find  it  to  be  their  unanimous  opinion, 
that  to  do  so,  would  be  interpreted  by  the  public  into  an  approval, 
niore  or  less,  of  other  doctrines  which  are  taught  there,  from  which 
I,  of  all  men  in  England,  differ  most  strongly,  and  from  which  1 
hold  myself  bound  most  strongly  to  protest. 

"As  a  churchman,  such  a  suspicion  would  be  intolerable  to  me, 
as  it  would  bo  gratuitously  incurred.  Those  who  wish  to  know  my 
opinions  will  have  plenty  of  opportunities  elsewhere  ;  and  I  must 
therefore,  in  common  with  my  friends,  distinctly,  but  most  cour- 
teously,  decline  your  kind  offer  of  the  John  Street  lecture  rooms.'' 

He  was  so  much  exhausted  with  the  work  and  the  controversies 
of  the  las',  eight  months,  that  his  parents,  vho  were  going  to  Ger 


148  Charles  Kingsley. 

many  for  some  weeks,  seeing  the  importance  of  hiS  having  tho- 
rough cliange,  persuaded  him  to  leave  his  parish  in  the  care  of  a 
curate  and  go  abroad  with  them.  It  was  the  first  time  he  had 
crossed  the  water,  and  it  was  quite  a  revelation  to  him, — to  be 
enjoyed  as  thoroughly  as  he  could  enjoy  any  thing  which  took  him 
fiom  his  home.  But  even  in  new  scenes  his  fiery  spirit  could  not 
rest ;  and  the  cause  of  the  Church  and  the  People  pressed  heavily 
on  him. 

TO    HIS    WIFE. 

Menderscheid,  August  7. 

"  I  write  from  the  loveliest  place  you  can  imagine,  only  how  v/e 
got  here  I  know  not ;  having  lost  our  way  between  some  '  feld'  or 
other  to  here.  We  found  ourselves  about  8  p.m.  last  night  at  the 
top  of  a  clitf  500  feet  high,  with  a  roaring  river  at  the  bottom,  and 
no  path.  So  down  the  cliff  face  we  had  to  come  in  the  dark,  or 
sleep  in  the  forest  to  be  eaten  by  wild  boars  and  wolves,  of  which 
latter,  one  was  seen  on  our  route  yesterday  '  as  high  as  a  table.' 
And  down  we  came,  knapsacks,  fishing  rods,  and  all ;  which  process 
must  not  be  repeated  often  if  we  intend  to  revisit  our  native  shores. 
I  have  seen  such  wonders,  1  don't  know  where  to  begin.  Craters 
filled  some  rimes  with  ghastly  blue  lakes,  with  shores  of  volcanic 
dust,  and  sometimes,  quaintly  enough,  by  rye-fields  and  reapers. 
The  roads  are  mended  with  lava  ;  the  whole  country  the  strangest 
jumble,  alternations  of  Cambridgeshire  ugliness  (only  lifted  up  1,200 
feet  high)  with  all  the  beauties  of  Devonshire.  The  bed  of  the 
Issbach,  from  the  baths  of  Bertrich,  up  which  we  came  yesterday, 
was  the  most  ravishingly  beautiful  glen  scenery  I  ever  saw  ;  such 
rocks — such  baths — such  mountains  covered  with  huge  timber — 
not  mere  scrub,  like  the  Rhine  forests.  Such  strips  of  lawn  here 
and  there  between  the  stream  and  the  wood.  All  this,  of  course, 
you  get  on  a  grander  scale  on  the  Moselle,  which  was  perfectly 
exquisite  ;  yet  there  is  a  monotomy  in  its  luxious  richness  and  soft- 
ness, and  I  was  right  glad  to  find  myself  on  my  legs  at  Alf.  Two 
days  of  that  steamer  running  would  have  been  too  much  for  one, 
vith  its  heat  and  confinement,  so  I  think  this  plan  of  walking  is  the 
Lest.     Weather  glorious." 

Treves,  August  17. 

"  Here  we  are  at  Treves,  having  been  brought  here  under  at 
rest,  with  a  gensdarme  from  the  Mayor  of  Bittsburg,  and  liberated 
next  morning  with  much  laughter  and  many  curses  from  the  police 
here.  However,  we  had  the  pleasure  of  spending  a  night  in  pri- 
son, among  fleas  and  felons,  on  the  bare  floor.  It  appears  the 
barbarians  took   our  fishing-rods  for  '  todt-instrumenten ' — deadl) 


Arrested  at   Treves  149 

weapons — and  our  wide-awa.kes  for  Italian  hats,  anj  got  intf)  their 
addle  pates  that  we  were  emissaries  of  Mazzini  and  Co.  distributing 
political  tracts,  for  not  a  word  of  politics  had  we  talked.  Luckily 
the  police-inspector  here  was  a  gentleman,  and  his  wife  and  daugh- 
ter ladies,  and  they  did  all  they  dare  for  us,  and  so  about  ten  next 
morning  we  were  set  free  with  many  apologies,  and  the  gensdarme 
(who,  after  all,  poor  fellow,  was  very  civil)  sent  back  to  Bittsburg 
with  a  reprimand.  We  are  the  lions  of  Treves  at  present,  for  the 
affair  has  made  a  considerable  fuss.  We  leave  this  to-morrow  after 
having  seen  all  the  wonders — and  what  wonders  there  are  to  see. 
I  need  not  tell  you  all  I  have  felt  here  and  at  Fleissem.  But  at 
first  the  feeling  that  one  is  standing  over  the  skeleton  of  the  giant 
iniquity — Old  Rome — is  overpowering.  And  as  I  stood  last  night 
in  that  amphitheatre,  amid  the  wild  beasts'  dens,  and  thought  of 
the  Christian  martyrdoms  and  the  Frank  prisoners,  and  all  the  hell- 
ish scenes  of  agony  and  cruelty  that  place  had  witnessed,  1  seemed 
to  hear  the  very  voice  of  the  Archangel  whom  St.  John  heard  in  Pat- 
mos,  crying,  '  Babylon  the  Great  is  fallen  ; '  but  no  more  like  the 
sound  of  a  trumpet,  but  only  in  the  still  whisper  of  the  night  breeze, 
and  through  the  sleeping  vmeyards,  and  the  great  still  smile  of  God 
out  of  the  broad  blue  heaven.  Ah  !  and  you  were  not  there  to 
feel  it  with  me  !     I  am  so  longing  to  be  home ! " 

Before  going  abroad,  he  had  parted  with  the  beloved  pupil  who 
had  become  quite  one  of  the  family  at  the  Rectory,  and  was  dear 
to  him  and  his  wife  as  a  son.  Mr.  John  Martineau's  graphic  words 
and  tender  recollections  of  the  eighteen  months  he  spent  at  Eveis- 
ley,  give  the  best  picture  of  the  home  life  at  that  period,  between 
January  2t,  1850,  and  June  28,  1851. 

Park  Corner,   Yi^cvs\^\.V),  Christmas  Eve,  1875. 

"  1  first  knew  him  in  January,  1850.  I  entered  his  house  as  his 
pupil,  and  was  for  nearly  a  year  and  a  half  his  constant  companion  ; 
indeed,  out  of  doors,  almost  his  only  companion,  for  during  the 
greater  part  of  the  time  he  had  no  other  pupil,  and  harcJy  any  inti- 
mate friends  within  reach.  He  was  then  in  his  thirty-first  year,  in 
the  fulness  of  his  strength  ;  I  a  raw  receptive  school-boy  of  fifteen ; 
so  that  his  mind  and  character  left  their  impression  upon  mine  a.= 
a  seal  does  upon  wax.  What  that  impression  was  I  will  put  down 
as  best  I  can. 

"  He  was  then,  above  all  things  and  before  all  things  else,  a 
parish  clergyman.  His  parish  work  was  not  indeed  so  laborious 
and  absorbing  as  it  had  been  six  years  before,  when  he  was  first 
mad"  Rector.  The  efforts  of  /hese  six  years  had  told,  the  seed 
was  bearing  fruit,  and   Everslej  would  never  again  be  as  it  had 


c50  Charles  Kingsley. 

been.  His  health  had  nearly  broken  down  not  long  l^fore,  and  he 
had  now  a  curate  to  help  him,  and  give  him  the  leisure  which  he 
needed  for  writing  and  other  things.  Still,  even  so,  with  a  large 
and  straggling  though  not  very  populous  parish,  with  his  share  of 
thice  services  on  Sunday  and  cottage-lectures  on  two  week-day 
evenings  in  winter,  there  was  much  for  him  to  do  ;  throwing  him- 
self into  it,  as  he  did,  with  all  his  intensity  and  keen  sense  of 
responsibility.  At  this  time,  too,  he  had  not,  as  in  later  )ears,  the 
help  and  the  purses  of  laymen  to  assist  him. 

"These  were  the  days  when  farm-laborers  in  Hampshire  got 
from  eight  to  ten  shillings  a  week,  and  bread  was  dear,  or  had  not 
long  ceased  to  be  so.  The  cholera  of  1849  had  just  swept  through 
the  country,  and  though  it  had  not  reached  Eversley,  a  severe  kind 
of  low  fever  had,  and  there  had  been  a  season  of  much  illness  and 
many  deaths,  during  which  he  had,  by  his  constant,  anxious,  tender 
care  of  the  sick  poor,  won  their  confidence  more  than  ever  before. 
The  poor  will  not  go  to  the  relieving  officer  if  they  can  get  their  needs 
supplied  elsewhere ;  and  the  Eversley  poor  used  to  go  for  relief, 
and  something  more  than  relief,  to  the  Rectory.  There  were  few 
mornings,  at  that  time,  that  did  not  bring  some  one  in  distress, 
some  feeble  woman,  or  ailing  child,  or  a  summons  to  a  sick  bed. 
Up  to  that  time  he  had  allowed  {I  believe)  no  man  or  woman  in 
his  parish  to  become  an  inmate  of  the  work-house  through  intirmity 
or  old  age,  except  in  a  few  cases  were  want  had  been  the  direct 
consequence  of  indolence  or  crime. 

*'  At  times,  too,  other  poor  besides  those  of  his  parish,  might  be 
seen  at  his  door.  Gipsies  were  attracted  to  him  from  all  the 
country  round.  He  married  and  christened  many  of  them,  to 
whom  such  rites  were  things  almost  unknown. 

*'  I  cannot  give  any  description  of  his  daily  life,  his  parish 
work,  which  will  not  sound  commonplace.  There  were  the  morn- 
ings chiefly  spent  in  reading  and  writing,  the  afternoons  in  going 
from  cottage  to  cottage,  the  long  evenings  in  writing.  It  so mds 
monotonous  enough.  But  there  never  was  a  man  with  whom  life 
was  less  monotonous,  with  whom  it  was  more  full  to  overflowing, 
of  variety,  and  freshness.  Nothing  could  be  so  exquisitely  delight- 
ful as  a  walk  with  him  about  his  parish.  Earth,  air,  and  water,  as 
well  as  farm-house  and  cottage,  seemed  full  of  his  familiar  friends. 
By  day  and  by  night,  in  fair  weather  and  in  storm,  grateful  for 
heat  and  cold,  rain  and  sunshine,  light  and  soothing  darkness,  h<» 
drank  in  nature.  It  seemed  as  if  no  bird,  or  beast,  or  insect 
scarcely  a  drilling  cloud  in  the  sky,  passed  by  him  unnoticed,  un- 
welcomed.  He  caught  and  noted  every  breath,  every  sound, 
every  sign.  With  every  person  he  met  he  instinctively  struck  some 
point  of  contact,  found  something  to  appreciate — often,  it  might 
be^  some  information  to  ask  for — whicii  left  the  other  cheered, 
selt-respecting,  raised  for  the  moment  above  himself;  and  wh  ate  vex 


LetUr  from  Mr.   John  Martiiieau.  151 

tlie  passing  word  might  be,  it  was  given  to  high  or  low,  gentle  01 
simple,  with  an  ai)propriateness,  a  force,  and  a  genial  courtesy,  in 
the  case  of  all  women,  a  deferential  courtesy,  which  threw  its  spell 
3ver  all  alike,  a  spell  which  few  could  resist. 

"  So  many-sided  was  he  that  he  seemed  to  unite  in  himself  more 
types  and  varieties  of  mind  and  character,  types  differing  as  widely 
as  the  poet  from  the  man  of  science,  or  the  mystic  from  the  soldier  ; 
to  be  filled  with  more  thoughts,  hopes,  fears,  interests,  aspirations, 
temptations  than  could  co-exist  in  any  one  man,  all  subdued  or 
clenched  into  union  and  harmony  by  the  force  of  one  iron  will, 
which  had  learnt  to  rule  after  many  a  fierce  and  bitter  struggle. 

"  His  senses  were  acute  to  an  almost  painful  degree.  The  sight 
of  suffering,  the  foul  scent  of  a  sick-room — well  used  as  he  was  to 
both  —  would  haunt  him  for  hours.  For  with  all  his  man's  strength 
there  was  a  deep  vein  of  woman  in  him,  a  nervous  sensitiveness,  an 
intensity  of  sympathy,  which  made  him  suffer  when  others  sufi:ered 
a  tender,  delicate,  soothing  touch,  which  gave  him  power  to  under- 
stand and  reach  the  heart  ;  to  call  out,  sometimes  at  first  sight 
(what  he  of  all  men  least  sought),  the  inmost  confidences  of  men 
and  women  alike  in  all  classes  of  life.  And  he  had  sympathy  with 
all  moods  from  deepest  grief  to  lightest  humor — for  no  man  had  a 
keener,  quicker  perception  of  the  humorous  side  of  anything — a 
love  and  ready  word  of  praise  for  whatever  was  good  or  beautiful, 
from  the  greatest  to  the  least,  from  the  heroism  of  the  martyr  to  the 
shape  of  a  good  horse,  or  the  folds  of  a  graceful  dress.  And  this 
wide-reaching  hearty  appreciation  made  a  word  of  praise  from  him 
sweeter,  to  those  who  knew  him  well,  than  volumes  of  commenda- 
tion from  all  the  world  besides. 

"  His  every  thought  and  word  was  penetrated  with  the  belief, 
the  full  assurance,  that  the  world — the  world  of  the  soldier  or  the 
sportsman,  as  well  as  the  world  of  the  student  or  the  theologian — ■ 
was  God's  world,  and  that  everything  which  He  had  made  was 
good.  '  Humani  nihil  a  me  alienum  puto,'  he  said,  taught  by  his 
wide  human  sympathies,  and  encouraged  by  his  faith  in  the  Incar- 
nation. And  so  he  rejected,  as  Pharisaic  and  unchristian,  most  of 
what  is  generally  implied  in  the  use  of  such  words  as  '  carnal,' 
'unconverted,'  'worldly,'  and  thereby  embraced  in  his  sympathy, 
and  won  to  faith  and  hope,  many  a  struggling  soul,  many  a  bruised 
reed,  whom  the  narrow  and  exclusive  ignorance  of  schools  and 
religionists  had  rejected. 

"No  human  being  but  was  sure  of  a  patient,  interested  hearer  in 
him.  1  have  seen  him  seat  himself,  hatless,  beside  a  tramp  on  the 
grass  outside  his  gate  in  his  eagerness  to  catch  exactly  what  he  had 
to  say,  searching  'aim,  as  they  sate,  in  his  keen  kindly  way  with 
question  and  look.  With  as  great  a  horror  of  pauperism  and  alms- 
giving as  any  professed  political  economist,  it  was  in  practice  verj 
hard  to  him  to  refuse  any  one.     The  sight  of  unmistakable  nusery 


152  Charles  Kingsley- 

however  caused,  covered  to  him,  the  multitude  cf  sins.  1  .ec  »llec\ 
his  passing  backwar  !s  and  forwards  again  and  again — :he  strong 
inipulbive  will  for  once  irresolute — between  the  breakfast-rocmi  an  1 
a  miserable  cr3ang  woman  outside,  and  1  cannot  forget,  though 
twenty-five  years  have  passed  since,  the  unutterable  look  of  pain 
and  disgust  with  which,  when  he  had  decided  to  refuse  the  request, 
he  said,  '  Look  there  ! '  as  he  pointed  to  his  own  well-furnishe  1 
table. 

"  Nothing  roused  him  to  anger  so  much  as  cant.  Once  a 
scoundrel,  on  being  refused,  and  thinking  that  at  a  parsonage  ai;  J 
with  a  parson  it  would  be  a  successful  trick,  fell  on  his  knees  on 
the  door-step,  turned  up  the  whites  of  his  eyes  and  began  the  dis- 
gusting counterfeit  of  a  prayer.  In  a^i  instant  the  man  found  him- 
self, to  his  astonishment,  seized  by  collar  and  wrist,  and  being 
swiftly  thrust  towards  the  gate,  with  a  firm  grip  and  a  shake  that 
deprived  him  of  all  inclination  to  resist,  or,  till  he  found  himself 
safe  outside  it,  even  to  remonstrate. 

"  He  had  at  that  time  great  physical  strength  and  activity,  and 
an  impetuous,  restless,  nervous  energy,  which  I  have  never  seen 
equalled.  All  his  strength,  physical,  mental,  and  moral,  seemed 
to  find  expression  in  his  keen  grey  eyes,  which  gazed,  with  the  look 
of  an  eagle,  from  under  massive  brows,  divided  from  each  other  by 
two  deep  perpendicular  furrows — at  that  time,  together  with  the 
two  equally  deep  lines  from  nostril  to  mouth,  very  marked  features 
in  his  face.  One  day,  in  a  neighbor's  yard,  a  large  savage  dog  flew 
out  at  him,  straining  at  its  chain.  He  walked  up  to  it,  scolding  it, 
and  by  mere  force  of  eye,  voice,  and  gesture,  drove  it  into  its 
kennel,  close  to  which  he  stopped,  keeping  his  eye  on  the  cowed 
animal,  as  it  growled  and  moved  uneasily  from  side  to  side.  He 
had  done  the  same  thing  often  before,  and  had  even  pulled  an  in- 
furiated dog  out  of  its  kennel  by  its  chain,  after  having  driven  it  in. 

"  By  boyish  habits  and  tastes  a  keen  sportsman,  the  only  sport 
ne  ever  enjoyed  at  this  time  was  an  occasional  day's  trout  or  pike 
fishing,  or  throwing  a  fly  for  an  hour  or  two  during  his  afternoon's 
walk  over  the  little  stream  that  bounded  his  parish.  Hunting  he 
had  none.  And  in  later  years,  when  he  did  hunt  occasionally,  it 
was  generally  a  matter  of  two  or  three  hours  on  an  old  horse,  taken 
as  a  relaxation  in  the  midst  of  work,  not,  as  with  most  other  men, 
as  a  day's  work  in  itself.  Fond  as  he  was  of  horses,  he  never  in 
his  life  ha/i  one  worth  fifty  pounds,  so  little  self-indulgent  was  he. 
He  never  then,  or  afterwards — so  far  as  I  know — went  out  shool 

"Though  exercising  intense  self  control,  he  was  very  restless  and 
excitable.  Constant  movement  was  a  relief  and  almost  a  necessity 
to  him.  His  study  opened  by  a  door  of  its  own  ui)on  the  garden, 
and  most  of  his  sermons  and  books  were  thought  out  and  composed 
%A  he  paced  up  and  down  there,  at  all  hours  and  in  all  weathers, 


Mr.  Maurice,  153 

his  hands  behind  his  back,  generally  smoking  a  long  clay  p'pe  ;  for 
tobacco  had,  as  he  found  by  experience — having  once  tried  a  year'? 
total  abstinence  from  it — an  especially  soothing  beneficial  effect 
upon  him.  He  ate  hurriedly,  and  it  was  an  effort  to  him  to  sit  still 
through  a  meal.  His  coat  frequently  had  a  white  line  across  the 
back,  made  by  his  habit  of  leaning  against  the  whitened  chimney- 
piece  of  the  dining-room  during  breakfast  and  dinner.  Once  in  the 
long  summer  days  we  were  condemned  to  a  more  than  usually  dull 
dinner-party  at  a  neighbor's  house,  where  the  only  congenial  person 
was  a  young  scientific  doctor  from  the  next  parish.  After  dinner, 
It  being  broad  daylight,  we  were  all  in  the  garden,  and  opposite  to 
us  were  two  high  thick-foliaged  trees.  I  do  not  know  which  of 
the  two  suggested  it,  but  in  an  instant  his  coat  and  the  doctor's 
were  off,  and  they  were  racing  each  other,  each  up  his  tree,  like 
schoolboys,  one  getting  first  to  die  top,  the  other  first  down  again 
to  the  ground. 

"  Of  society  he  had  then  very  little,  and  it  was  rarely  and  un- 
willingly that  he  passed  an  evening  away  from  home.  He  did  not 
seek  it,  and  it  had  not  yet  begun  to  seek  him.  Indeed,  at  no  time 
was  general  society  a  congenial  element  to  him  ;  and  those  who 
knew  him  only  thus,  did  not  know  him  at  his  best.  A  few  intimate 
friends,  and  now  and  then  a  stranger,  seeking  his  advice  on  some 
matter,  would  come  for  a  night  or  a  Sunday.  Amongst  the  former, 
and  iionored  above  all,  was  Mr.  Maurice.  One  of  his  visits  hap- 
pened at  a  time  when  we  had  been  startled  by  a  burglary  and 
murder  at  a  parsonage  a  few  miles  off,  and  had  armed  ourselves 
and  barricaded  the  rambling  old  Rectory  in  case  of  an  attack.  In 
the  middle  of  the  night  an  attempt  was  made  to  force  open  the 
back  door,  which  roused  us  all,  and  we  rushed  down  stairs  with 
pistols,  guns,  and  blunderbuss,  to  expel  the  thieves,  who,  however, 
had  taken  alarm  and  made  off.  Mr.  Maurice,  the  only  unarmed 
and  the  coolest  man  amongst  us,  was  quietly  going  out  alone,  in 
the  pitch  darkness,  into  the  garden  in  pursuit  of  them,  when  Mr. 
Kingsley  fortunately  came  upon  him  and  stopped  him  ;  and  the 
two  passed  the  rest  of  the  night  togetlier  talking  over  the  study-fire 
till  morning  came. 

"Many  a  one  has  cause  to  remember  that  Study,  its  lattice 
window  (in  later  years  altered  to  a  b-ay),  its  great  heavy  doer, 
studded  with  large  projecting  nails,  opening  upon  the  garden  ;  itj 
brick  floor  covered  with  matting ;  its  shelves  of  heavy  old  folios, 
with  a  fishing-rod,  or  landing-net,  or  insect-net  leaning  against 
them ;  on  the  table,  books,  writing  materials,  sermons,  manuscript. 
proofs,  letters,  reels,  feathers,  fishing-flies,  clay-pipes,  tobacco.  On 
the  mat,  perhaps — the  brown  eyes,  set  in  thick  yellow  hair,  and 
gently-agitated  tail,  asking  indulgence  for  the  intrusion — a  long- 
bodied,  short-legged  Dandy  Dinmont  Scotch  terrier,  wisest,  hand- 
soiiiest,  most  faithful^  most  memorable  of  its  race.     When  the  resi 


1 54  Charles  Kings  ley. 

of  the  household  went  to  bed,  he  would  ask  his  giest  in,  ostensibly 
to  smoke.  The  swing-door  would  be  Hung  open  and  slam  heavilj 
aiter  him,  as  it  always  did,  for  he  would  never  stop  to  catch  pnc 
close  it.  And  then  in  the  quiet  of  night,  when  no  fresh  face  could 
come,  no  interruption  occur  to  distract  him,  he  Avould  give  himself 
wholly  to  his  guest,  taking  up  whatever  topic  the  latter  might  sug- 
gest, whatever  question  he  might  ask,  and  pouring  out  from  the 
full  stores  of  his  knowledge,  his  quick  intuitive  sagacity,  his  reaily 
sympathy.  Then  it  was,  far  more  than  in  the  excitement  and  dis 
traction  of  many  voices  and  many  faces,  that  he  was  himself,  that 
the  true  man  appeared ;  and  it  was  at  times  such  as  these  that  he 
came  to  be  known  and  trusted  and  loved,  as  icw  men  ever  have 
been,  as  no  man  has  been  whom  I  ever  knew. 

"  He  had  to  a  wonderful  degree  the  power  of  abstraction  and 
concentration,  which  enabled  him  to  arrange  and  elaborate  a  whole 
sermon,  or  a  chapter  of  a  book,  while  walknig,  riding,  or  even  fly- 
lishing,  without  making  a  note,  so  as  to  be  able  on  his  return  to 
write  or  dictate  it  in  clear  terse  language  as  fast  as  pen  could  move. 
He  would  read  a  book  and  grasp  its  essential  part  thorougiily  in  a 
time  so  short  that  it  seemed  impossible  that  his  eyes  could  have 
traversed  its  pages.  Compared  with  other  men  who  have  written 
ox  thought  much,  he  worked  for  a  {qw  hours  in  the  day,  and  with- 
out much  system  or  regularity  ;  but  his  application  was  so  intense 
t)\at  the  strain  upon  his  vital  powers  was  very  great.  Nor  when  he 
ceased  could  his  brain  rest.  Except  during  sleep, — and  even  that 
was  characteristic,  so  profound  was  it,— repose  seemed  impossible 
to  him  for  body  or  mind.  So  that  he  seemed  to  live  three  days,  as 
it  were,  while  other  men  were  living  one,  and  already  foresaw  that 
there  would  be  for  him  no  great  length  of  years. 

"  Connected  with  this  rapid  living  was  a  certain  impatience  of 
trifles,  an  inaccuracy  about  details,  a  haste  in  drawing  conclusions, 
a  forgetfulness  of  times  and  seasons,  and  of  words  lightly  spoken 
or  written,  and  withal  an  impulsive  and  almost  reckless  generosity, 
and  fear  of  giving  pain,  which  sometimes  placed  him  at  an  unfair 
disadvantage  and  put  him  formally  in  the  wrong  when  substantially 
he  was  in  the  right.  It  led  him,  too,  to  take  too  hastily  a  favor- 
able estimate  of  almost  every  one  with  whom  he  came  personally 
into  contact,  so  that  he  was  liable  to  suffer  from  misjilaced  con 
hdence  ;  while  in  the  petty  matters  of  daily  life  it  made  him  a  bad 
guardian  of  his  own  interests,  and  but  for  the  wise  and  tender 
assistance  that  was  ever  at  his  side  would  almost  have  overwhelmed 
him  with  anxieties. 

"  In  die  pulpit,  and  even  at  his  Aveek-day  ccttage-lectures,  where, 
from  the  population  of  his  parish  being  so  scattered,  he  had  some- 
times scarcely  a  dozen  hearers,  he  was  at  that  time  eloquent  be- 
yond any  man  I  ever  heard.  >\>r  he  had  the  two  essential  con- 
stituents of  eloquence,  a  strong  man's  intensity  a^d  cleavnesj  ol 


Hesitation  in   Speech.  155 

conviction,  and  a  command  of  words,  not  easy  or  rapid,  but  sure 
and  unhesitating,  an  unfailing  instinct  for  the  one  word,  the  most 
concrete  and  pictorial,  the  strongest  and  the  simplest,  which 
otpressed  his  thought  exactly. 

'' M-iny  have  since  then  become  familiar  witli  his  preaching, 
many  more  with  his  published  sermons,  but  few  comparatively  can 
know  what  it  was  to  hear  him,  Sunday  after  Sunday,  in  his  own 
church  and  among  his  own  people,  not  preach  only,  but  read,  or 
laliier  pray,  the  prayers  of  the  Church-service.  So  completely  was 
he  in  harmony  with  these  pra3'ers,  so  fully  did  they  satisfy  him,  that 
with  a'J  his  exuberance  of  thought  and  imagination,  it  seemed  as  if 
for  him  there  was  nothing  to  be  asked  for  beyond  what  they  asked 
for.  So  that  in  his  cottage-lectures,  as  in  his  own  household  wor- 
ship, where  he  was  absolutely  free  to  use  any  words  he  chose,  [ 
scarcely  ever  heard  him  use  a  word  of  prayer  other  than  the  words 
of  the  Prayer  book. 

"  In  conversation  he  had  a  painful  hesitation  in  his  speech,  which 
diminished  as  he  got  older,  though  it  never  wholly  left  him.  But 
in  preaching,  and  in  speaking  with  a  set  purpose,  he  was  wholly 
free  from  it.  He  used  to  say  that  he  could  speak  for  God  but  not 
for  himself,  and  took  the  trial — and  to  his  keenly  sensitive  nature  it 
was  no  small  one, — patiently  and  even  thankfully,  as  having  by 
God's  mercy  saved  him  from  many  a  temptation  to  mere  brilliancy 
and  self-seeking.  The  successful  effort  to  overcome  this  difficulty 
increased  instead  of  diminishing  the  impressiveness  of  his  voice, 
for  to  it  was  partly  due  the  strange,  rich,  high-pitched,  musical 
monotone  in  which  he  prayed  and  preached,  the  echo  of  which,  as 
it  filled  his  church,  or  came  borne  on  the  air  through  the  open 
window  of  a  sick  room,  seems  to  travel  over  the  long  past  years 
and  kindle  his  words  afresh,  as  I  read  them  in  the  cold  dead  page. 

"  And  as  it  was  an  unspeakable  blessing  to  Eversley  to  have  hiai 
for  its  Rector,  so  also  it  was  an  inestimable  benefit  to  him  to  have 
had  so  early  in  life  a  definite  work  to  do  which  gave  to  his  generous 
sympathetic  impulses  abundant  objects  and  responsibilities  and  a 
clear  purpose  and  direction.  Conscious,  too,  as  he  could  not  but 
be,  of  great  powers,  and  imjmtient  of  dictation  or  control,  the 
repose  and  isolation  of  a  country  parish  afforded  him  the  best  aiui 
healthiest  opportunities  of  develoi)ment,  and  full  liberty  of  thought 
and  speech,,  with  sufticient  leisure  for  reading  and  study. 

"  Great  as  was  his  love  of  natural  science,  in  so  many  of  its 
branches,  his  genius  was  essentially  that  of  a  poet.  Often  a  time 
of  trouble  and  sadness — and  there  was  in  him  a  strong  undercurrent 
of  sadness  at  all  times, — would  result  in  the  birth  of  a  lyrical  poem 
or  song,  on  a  subject  wholly  unconnected  with  that  which  occupied 
hi-n,  the  production  of  which  gave  him  evident  relief,  as  though  in 
some  mysterious  way  his  mind  was  thereby  disburdened  and  set  free 
for  the  lec  option  of  loew  thoughts  and  impressions.    In  June,  1851, 


156  Ckafles  Kingsley. 

he  preached  a  powerful  sermon  to  working  men  in  a  London 
chiircli.  No  sooner  had  he  finished  it  than  the  incumbent  who 
had  asked  him  to  preach,  rose  in  the  reading-desk  and  denounced 
it.  It  was  a  painful  scene,  which  narrowly  escaped  ending  ir.  a 
riot,  and  he  felt  keenly — not  the  insult  to  himself — but  the  dis- 
credit and  scandal  to  the  Church,  the  estrangement  that  it  would 
be  likely  to  increase  between  the  clergy  and  the  working  men.  He 
came  home  the  day  after,  wearied  and  worn  out,  obliged  to  stop 
to  rest  and  refresh  himself  at  a  house  in  his  ])arish  during  his  after- 
noon's walk.  That  same  evening  he  brought  in  a  song  that  he  had 
written,  the  '  Three  Fishers,'  as  though  it  were  the  outcome  of  it 
all ;  and  then  he  seemed  able  to  put  the  matter  aside,  and  the 
current  of  his  daily  life  flowed  as  before. 

"  Not  that  he  at  this  time — or  indeed  at  any  time — wrote  much 
verse.  Considering  that  what  the  world  needed  was  not  verse, 
however  good,  so  much  as  sound  knowledge,  sound  reasoning, 
sound  faith,  and  above  all,  as  the  fruit  and  evidence  of  the  last, 
sound  morality,  he  did  not  give  free  rein  to  his  poetical  faculty, 
but  sought  to  make  it  his  servant,  not  his  master,  to  use  it  to 
illuminate  and  fix  the  eyes  of  men  on  the  truths  of  science,  of 
social  relationship,  of  theology,  of  morality.  His  books — and  they 
are  many — are  the  living  witnesses  of  the  fruit  of  these  efforts,  of 
the  many  pur[)oses,  the  varied  subjects,  on  which  he  employed  the 
gift  that  was  in  him.  The  letters  which  he  received  in  countless 
numbers,  often  from  utter  strangers  who  knew  nothing  of  him  but 
from  his  books,  seeking  counsel  on  the  most  delicate  and  important 
matters  of  life,  testify  how  great  a  gift  it  was,  how  truly  and 
tellingly  it  was  used. 

"  In  reading  all  his  writings,  on  whatever  subject,  it  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  he  was  a  poet, — that  he  could  not  help  think'ng, 
feeling,  and  writing  as  a  poet.  Patience,  industry,  a  memory  for 
detail,  he  had,  even  logical  and  inductive  power  of  a  certain  in- 
tuitive intermittent  kind,  not  sustained,  indeed,  or  always  reliable, 
for  his  was  not  a  logical,  or  in  details  an  accurate  mind,  and  surf^-ce 
inconsistencies  are  not  hard  to  find  in  his  writings  ;  but  as  a  poet, 
even  if  he  saw  all  sides,  he  could  not  express  them  all  at  once. 
The  very  keenness  of  his  sympathy,  the  intensity  with  which  he? 
realized  all  that  was  passing  around  him,  made  it  impossible  for 
him  to  maintain  the  calm  unruffled  judgment  of  men  of  a  less  fierjr 
temperament,  or  to  abstract  and  devote  himself  to  the  pursuit  of 
any  one  branch  zi  study  without  being  constantly  distracted  from  it 
and  urged  in  some  new  direction  by  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  the 
surging  world  around,  to  seek  if  by  any  means  he  might  find  a 
medicine  to  heal  its  sickness. 

"  Hence  it  may,  perhaps,  be  that  another  generation  will  not 
fully  realize  the  wide-spread  influence,  the  great  power,  he  exer- 
cised  through  his  writings.     Fjr,  in  a  sense,  it  may  be  said  that,  at 


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A  Radical  and  Char  list  157 

to  some  of  them,  not  their  least  merit  is  that  in  part  they  will  twt 
live,  except  as  the  seed  lives  in  the  corn  which  grows,  or  water  in 
the  plant  which  it  has  revived.  For  tlieir  power  often  lay  mainly 
in  the  diiection  of  their  aim  at  the  special  need  of  the  hour,  the 
inemoiy  of  which  has  passed,  or  will  pass,  away.  As  his  'Master,' 
as  he  affectionately  and  humbly  called  Mr.  Maurice,  was  a  theo- 
logian, and,  in  its  original  sense,  a  '  Prophet,'  so  Mr.  Kingsley,  as 
Priest  and  Poet,  gloried  in  interpreting,  expanding,  applying  him. 
•  I  think  this  will  explain  a  good  deal  of  Maurice,'  was  the  single 
remark  I  heard  him  make  when  he  had  completed  'Yeast.' 

"  In  later  years,  as  his  experience  widened,  his  judgment  ripened, 
his  conclusions  were  more  calmly  formed.  But  his  genius  was 
essentially  of  a  kind  that  comes  to  maturity  early,  when  the  imagi- 
nation is  still  vivid,  the  pulses  of  life  beat  fastest,  and  the  sym- 
pathies and  affections  are  most  passionately  intense.  And  I 
venture  to  think  that  these  comparatively  early  years  were  amongst 
the  best  of  his  life,  best  in  all  senses.  It  was  at  this  time,  the  first 
half  of  the  year  1850,  that  he  completed  'Alton  Locke,'  which, 
containing  though  it  may  more  faults,  sweeping  accusations,  hasty 
conclusions,  than  any  of  his  writings,  is  nevertheless  his  noblest 
and  most  characteristic  book — at  once  his  greatest  poem  and  hiii 
grandest  sermon. 

"  With  the  great  outside  world,  with  the  world  of  politicians  and 
the  press,  and  still  more  with  the  religious  world,  so  called,  as 
represented  by  the  religious  newspapers,  he  was  in  those  years  at 
open  war.  Popular  as  he  afterwards  became,  it  is  difficult  now  to 
realize  how  great  was  the  suspicion,  how  bitter  the  attacks, 
especially  from  the  religious  newspapers,  which  his  books  and 
sermons  drew  down  upon  him.  Not  that  he  in  general  cared  much 
for  praise  or  blame  from  the  newspaper  press,  so  venal  and  un- 
principled did  he — not  without  reason^ — consider  most  of  it,  Whig, 
Tory,  Radical,  and  religious.  At  that  time  he  did  not  take  in  or 
read  any  daily  paper.  The  Spectator,  then  edited  by  Mr.  Rintoul, 
and  with  Mr.  Brimley  for  its  chief  critic,  was  almost  his  only  source 
of  news. 

"  It  was  then  about  two  years  after  the  events  of  1848,  and  for 
turn  the  one  axl-important  and  absorbing  question  of  Politics  was 
(he  condition,  physical  and  mental,  of  the  working-classes  and  the 
poor  in  town  and  country.  C>n  that  question  he  considered  that 
all  the  leading  parties  of  the  legislature  had  alike  shown  themselves 
indifferent  and  incapable.  This  conviction,  and  a  deep  sympathy 
with  the  suffering  poor,  had  made  him  a  Radical.  Nay,  on  at  least 
one  occasion,  he  publicly  and  deliberatety  declared  himself  a 
Chartist-^a  name  which  then  meant  a  great  deal, — and  for  a  clergy- 
man to  do  this  was  an  act  the  bol(l''ness  of  which  it  is  difficult  tc 
appreciate  now. 

"  So  vivkily  did  he  realize  the  sufferings  of  the  f  oor,  so  keenh' 


158  CJkxrles  Kings  ley. 

did  he  feel  what  he  deemed  the  callousness  and  the  incompetfiice 
of  the  Government  to  alleviate  them,  and  the  mass  of  the  ui)pei 
and  middle  classes,  that  at  times  he  seemed  to  look,  with  trembling, 
for  the  coming  of  great  and  terrible  social  convulsions,  of  a  '  day  of 
the  Lord,'  such  as  Isaiah  looked  for,  as  the  inevitable  fate  of  a 
world  grown  evil,  yet  governed  still  by  a  righteous  God.  In  later 
years  this  feeling  gradually  left  him — alread}'^,  perhaps,  it  was 
beginning  to  fade.  But  it  was  no  mere  pulpit  o:  poetic  gust.  It 
penetrated  (I  think)  occasionally  even  to  the  lesser  matters  of 
daily  life.  Late  one  dark  night  he  called  me  out  to  him  into  the 
garden  to  listen  to  a  distant  sound,  which  he  told  me  was  a  fox's 
bark,  bidding  me  to  remember  it,  for  foxes  might  soon  cease  to 
be  in  England,  and  I  might  never  hear  one  bark  again. 

"  This  phase  of  his  life  has  been  described  by  one  Avho  knew  it 
in  an  earlier  stage,  and  far  better  than  I.  I  will  only  say  that, 
looking  back  upon  his  daily  life  and  conversation  at  that  time,  I 
believe  he  was  democratic  in  his  opinions  rather  than  in  his  instincts, 
more  by  force  of  conviction  than  by  natural  inclination.  A  doc- 
trinaire, or  a  lover  of  change  for  the  sake  of  change,  he  never  was  , 
and  when  he  advocated  democratic  measures,  it  was  more  as  a 
means  to  an  end  than  because  he  altogether  liked  the  means.  From 
the  pulpit,  and  with  his  pen,  he  claimed  brotherhood  with  all  men. 
No  man  in  his  daily  intercourse  respected  with  more  scrupulous  cour- 
tesy the  rights,  the  dignity  of  the  humblest.  But  he  instinctively  dis- 
liked a  '  beggar  on  horseback.'  Noblesse  oblige,  the  true  principle 
of  feudalism,  is  a  precept  which  shines  out  conspicuously  in  all  his 
books,  in  all  his  teaching,  at  this  period  of  his  life,  as  at  all  others. 

"In  later  years  his  convictions  became  more  in  accord  with  this 
natural  tendency  of  his  mind,  and  he  gradually  modified  or  aban- 
doned his  democratic  opinions,  thereby,  of  course,  drawing  down 
upon  himself  the  reproach  of  inconsistency  from  those  who  con- 
sidered that  he  had  deserted  them.  To  me,  looking  back  at  what 
he  was  when  he  wrote  '  Yeast,'  and  '  Alton  Locke,'  the  change 
seems  rather  the  natural  development  of  his  mind  and  character 
under  more  or  less  altered  circumstances,  partly  because  he  saw 
the  world  about  him  really  improving,  partly  because  by  exi)erience 
he  found  society  and  other  existing  institutions  more  full  of  health) 
life,  more  available  as  instruments  of  good,  more  willing  to  be 
taught,  than  he  had  formerly  thought. 

"  But,  at  that  time,  in  his  books  and  pamphlets,  and  often  in 
his  daily  familiar  speech,  he  was  pouring  out  the  whole  force  of  his 
eager,  passionate  heart,  in  wrath  and  indignation,  against  starva- 
tion wages,  stifling  workshops,  reeking  alleys,  careless  landlords 
roofless  and  crowded  cottages,  hard  and  canting  religion.  His 
'Poacher's  Widow'  is  a  inercing,  heart-rending  cry  to  heaven  for 
vengeance  against  the  oppressor.  '  There  is  a  righteous  God,'  is 
Its  burthen,  '  and  such  things  cannot  and  shall  not,  remain  to  ile 


The  Bristol  Riots.  159 

face  the  world  which  He  has  made.  Laws,  const  lutions,  churches, 
are  none  of  His  if  they  tolerate  such;  they  are  accursed,  and 
thev  must  perish — destroy  what  they  may  in  their  fall.  Nay,  they 
will  perish  in  their  own  corruption.' 

"  One  day,  as  he  was  reading  with  me,  something  led  him  to  tell 
me  of  the  Bristol  Riots  of  1832.  He  was  in  that  year  a  schoolboy 
of  thirteen,  at  Bristol,  and  had  slipped  away,  fascinated  by  the 
tunuilt  and  the  horror,  into  the  midst  of  it.  He  described — raj^ 
idly  pacing  up  and  down  the  room,  and,  with  glowing,  saddened 
face,  as  though  the  sight  were  still  before  his  eyes, — the  brave, 
patient  soldiers  sitting  hour  after  hour  motionless  on  their  horstv-, 
the  blood  streaming  from  wounds  on  their  heads  and  faces,  wail- 
ing for  the  order  which  the  miserable,  terrified  Mayor  had  not 
courage  to  give  ;  the  savage,  brutal,  hideous  mob  of  inhuman 
wretches  plundering,  destroying,  burning  ;  casks  of  spirits  broken 
open  and  set  flowing  in  the  streets,  the  wretched  creatures  drink- 
ing  it  on  their  knees  from  the  gutter,  till  the  tlame  from  a  burnir.g 
house  caught  the  stream,  ran  down  it  with  a  horrible  rushing  sound, 
and,  in  one  dreadful  moment,  the  prostrate  drunkards  had  become 
a  row  of  blackened  corpses.  Lastly,  he  spoke  of  the  shameless- 
ness  and  the  impunity  of  the  guilty  ;  the  persecution  and  the 
suicide  of  the  innocent. 

"'That  sight,'  he  said,  suddenly  turning  to  me,  'made  me  a 
Radical.' 

"  'Whose  fault  is  it,'  I  ventured  to  ask,  '  that  such  things  can  be  ?' 

"  '  Mine,'  he  said,  '  and  yours.' 

"  I  understood  partly  then,  I  have  understood  better  since, 
what  his  Radicalism  was. 

'*  From  his  home  lite  I  scarcely  dare,  even  for  a  moment,  try  to 
lift  the  veil.  I  will  only  say  that  having  had  the  priceless  blessing 
of  admission  to  it,  the  daily  sight  of  him  in  the  closets  of  his  home 
relations  has  left  me  a  deeper  debt  of  gratitude,  and  more  precious 
memories,  created  higher  hopes  and  a  higher  ideal,  than  all  other 
manifestations  combined  of  his  character  and  intellect.  To  his 
wife — so  he  never  shrank  from  affirming  in  deep  and  humble 
thankfulness — he  owed  the  whole  tenor  of  his  Hfe,  all  that  he  had 
worth  living  for.  It  was  true.  And  his  every  word  and  look,  and 
gesture  of  chivalrous  devotion  for  more  than  thirty  years,  seemed 
to  show  that  the  sense  of  boundless  gratitude  had  become  part  of 
his  nature,  was  never  out  of  the  undercurrent  of  his  thoughts. 
Little  thinking  that  he  was  to  be  taken  first,  and  with  a  prospec! 
of  a  long  agony  of  loneliness  imminent  from  hour  to  hour,  the  last 
Hash  of  genius  from  his  breaking  hea't  was  to  gather  into  three 
simple,  pregnant  words,  as  a  last  offeang  to  her,  the  whole  story 
of  his  life,  of  the  Faith  he  preached  and  lived  in,  of  his  marriage, 
blessed,  and  yet  to  be  blessed.  He  was  spared  that  agony.  Ovet 
his  grave  first  are  written  his  words, 

'Amavimus,  amamus,  amabimus.'" 


CHAPTER  Xi. 

Aged  ss- 

Strike  in  the  Iron-Tradr — Correspondence  on  Social  and  Metaphysical  Ques- 
tions— Mr.  Erskine  comes  to  Fir  Grove — Parson  L-ot's  last  Words — Birth  U 
his  youngest  Daughter — Letter  from  Frederika  Bremer. 

The  short  holiday  of  the  past  year  had  so  far  invigorated  Charles 
Kingsley  that  he  worked  without  a  curate  for  a  time.  The  literary 
work  was  hampered  by  the  heavy  correspondence,  principally  with 
strangers,  who  little  knew  what  labor  each  letter  cost  him.  Of 
one  very  valuable  series  of  letters  with  the  son  of  a  clergyman,  a 
young  man  of  atheistical  opinions,  connected  with  the  "  Reasoner," 
ewspaper,  and  who  eventually  died  a  professing  Christian,  only 
two  letters  are  preserved,  the  rest  having  been  by  the  will  of  theii 
owner  destroyed  at  his  death,  as  referring  to  a  phase  in  his  life 
which  it  would  be  painful  to  his  family  to  recall.  Another  series, 
to  Thomas  Cooper,  the  Chartist,  though  spread  over  this  and 
several  years,  will  be  given  together  in  a  later  chapter.  His  liter 
ary  work  consisted  of  "  Hypatia,"  now  coming  out  monthly  in 
*' Fraser's  Magazine  ;"  "Phaeton,"  and  a  reply  to  an  attack  on 
Christian  Socialism  in  "  Fraser's  Magazine,"  which  was  not  in- 
serted. In  the  summer  he  amused  himself  by  trying  his  hand  at 
hexameters,  and  began  the  poem  of  "Andromeda."  His  parish 
work  prevented  his  helping  personally  in  the  Co-operative  Move- 
ment in  London  ;  but  he  was  consulted  from  time  to  time  by  the 
Council  of  Promoters,  and  in  the  great  lock-out  of  the  Iron  Trade 
ii:  January  he  wrote  to  explain  his  views  on  the  matter.  This  let- 
ter *'  will  show,"  as  Mr.  Hughes  truly  says,  "how  far  Kingsley  was 
aa  encourager  of  '  violent  measures  or  views.'  " 

TO   TOM    HUGHES,    ESQ. 

EvERSLEY,  January  28,  1852. 
**  You  may  have  been  surprised  at  my  having  taken  no  part  in 
this  Amalgamated  Iron  Trades'  matter.     And  I  think  that  I  arr 


Masters  and  Men,  i6i 

Dound  to  say  why  I  have  not,  and  how  far  I  wish  my  friends  to 
interfere  in  it. 

"  I  do  think  that  we,  the  Council  of  Promoters,  shall  not  be 
wise  in  interfering  between  masters  and  men ;  because — i.  1 
question  whether  the  points  at  issue  between  them  can  be  fairly 
understood  by  any  person  not  conveisant  with  the  practical  do- 
tails  of  the  trade 

"  2.  Nor  do  I  think  they  have  put  their  case  as  well  as  they 
might.  For  instance,  if  it  be  true  that  they  themselves  have  in- 
vented many,  or  most,  of  the  improvements  in  their  tools  and  ma- 
chinery, they  have  an  argument  in  favor  of  keeping  out  unskilled 
laborers,  which  is  unanswerable,  and  yet  what  they  have  never 
used — viz.  :  'Your  masters  make  hundreds  and  thousands  by  these 
improvements,  while  we  have  no  remuneration  for  this  inventive 
talent  of  ours,  but  rather  lose  by  it,  because  it  makes  the  introduc- 
tion of  unskilled  labor  more  easy.  Therefore  the  only  way  in 
which  we  can  get  anything  like  a  payment  for  this  inventive  faculty 
of  which  we  make  you  a  present  over  and  above  our  skilled  labor, 
for  whicli  you  bargained,  is  to  demand  that  we,  who  invent  the 
machines,  if  we  cannot  have  a  share  in  the  profits  of  them,  shall 
at  least  have  the  exclusive  privilege  of  using  them,  instead  of  thetr 
being,  as  now,  turned  against  us.'  That,  I  think,  is  a  fair  argu 
ment ;  but  I  have  seen  nothing  of  it  from  any  speaker  or  writer. 

"  3.  I  think  whatever  battle  is  fought,  must  be  fought  by  the 
men  themselves.  The  present  dodge  of  the  Manchester  school  is 
to  cry  out  against  us,  as  Greg  did,  '  These  Christian  Socialists  are 
a  set  of  mediaeval  parsons,  who  want  to  hinder  the  independence 
and  self-help  of  the  men,  and  bring  them  back  to  absolute  feudal 
maxims ;  and  then,  with  the  most  absurd  inconsistency,  when  we 
get  up  a  Co-operative  workshop,  to  let  the  men  work  on  the  very 
independence  and  self-help  of  which  they  talk  so  fine,  they  turn 
round  and  raise  just  the  opposite  yell,  and  cry,  'The  men  can't  be 
independent  of  cai)italists ;  these  associations  will  fail  because  the 
men  are  helping  themselves' — showing  that  what  they  mean  is, 
that  the  men  shall  be  independent  of  every  one  but  themselves — • 
independent  of  legislators,  parsons,  advisers,  gentlemen,  noblemen, 
and  every  one  that  tries  to  help  them  by  moral  agents  ;  but  the 
slaves  of  the  capitalists,  bound  to  them  by  a  servitude  increasing 
instead  of  lightening  with  their  numbers.  Now,  the  only  way  in 
which  we  can  clear  the  cause  of  this  calumny,  is  to  let  the  men 
fight  their  own  battle ;  to  prevent  any  one  saying,  '  These  men  are 
the  tools  of  dreamers  and  fanatics,'  which  would  be  just  as  ruin- 
ously blackening  to  them  in  the  public  eyes,  as  it  would  be  to  let 
the  cry  get  abroad,  '  This  is  a  Socialist  movement,  destructive  of 
rights  of  property,  Communism,  I.ouis  Blanc,  and  the  devil,  &c.' 
You  know  the  infernal  stuff  which  the  devil  gets  up  on  sucli 
or^asions — having  no  scruples  about  callii'g  himself  hard  names 
II 


1 62  Charles  Kingsley, 

wlien  ic  suits  his  purpose,  to  blind  and  frighten  respectable  olJ 
women. 

"  Moreover,  these  men  are  not  ')oor  distressed  needle-women 
or  slop-workers.  They  are  the  most  intelligent  and  best  educated 
workmen,  receiving  incomes  often  higher  than  a  gentleman's  son 
whose  education  has  cost  looo/. ;  and  if  they  can't  fight  their  own 
battles,  no  men  in  England  can,  and  the  people  are  not  ripe  for 
association,  and  we  must  hark  back  into  the  competitive  rot  heap 
agiin.  All,  then,  that  we  can  do  is,  to  give  advice  when  asked— 
to  see  that  they  have,  as  far  as  we  can  get  at  them,  a  clear  stage 
and  no  favor,  but  not  by  public,  but  by  private  influence. 

"  But  we  can  help  them  in  another  way  by  showing  them  the 
way  to  associate.  That  is  quite  a  distinct  question  from  their  quar- 
rel with  their  masters,  and  we  shall  be  very  foolish  if  we  give  the 
press  a  handle  for  mixing  up  the  two.  We  have  a  right  to  say  tc 
masters,  men,  and  public,  '  We  know,  and  care  nothing  about  the 
iron  strike.  Here  are  a  body  of  men  coming  to  us,  wishing  to  be 
shown  how  to  do  that  which  is  a  right  thing  for  them  to  do — well 
or  ill  off,  strike  or  no  strike,  namely,  associate  ;  and  we  will  help 
and  teach  them  to  do  that  to  the  very  utmost  of  our  power.' 

"  The  Iron  Workers'  co-operative  shops  will  be  watched  with 
lynx  eyes,  calumniated  shamelessly.  Our  business  will  be  to  tell 
the  truth  about  them,  and  fight  manfully  with  our  pens  for  them. 
But  we  shall  never  be  able  to  get  the  ears  of  the  respectabilities 
and  the  capitalists,  if  we  appear  at  this  stage  of  the  business.  What 
we  must  say  is,  '  If  you  are  needy  and  enslaved,  we  will  fight  for 
you  from  pity,  whether  you  be  associated  or  competitive.  But  you 
are  neither  needy,  nor,  unless  you  choose,  enslaved ;  and  therefore 
we  will  only  fight  for  you  in  proportion  as  you  become  associates. 
Do  that,  and  see  if  we  can't  stand  hard  knocks  for  your  sake.'  " 

We  now  come  to  the  more  private  correspondence  of  the  year. 

TO ,  ESQ.* 

EvERSLEY,  Whit  Tuesday,  1852. 

"My  Dear  Mr. , 

"  Sad  as  your  letter  was,  it  gave  me  much  pleasure  :  it  is  al- 
vrays  a  pleasure  to  see  life  sj)ringing  out  of  death — health  returning 
after  disease,  though,  as  doctors  know,  the  recovery  from  aspliyxia 
or  drowning  is  always  as  painful  as  the  temporary  death  itself  was 

painless P'aith  is  born  of  doubt.     'It  is  not  life  but 

death  where  nothing  stirs.'     I   take  all  these  struggles  of  yours 

*  A  young  man  of  nineteen,  to  whom  he  was  personally  a  stranger,  but  who 
wrote  to  him  laying  bare  his  whole  heart,  having  woke  up  from  a  cojrse  of  sit 
vid  unbelief  in  black  despait . 


Sympathy  with    Young  Men.  163 

as  simply  so  many  signs  that  your  Fathe'  in  heaven  is  treating  you 
as  a  father,  that  He  lias  not  forsaken  you,  is  not  oftended  with  you, 
but  is  teaching  you  in  the  way  best  suited  to  your  own  idiosyn- 
crasy, the  great  lesson  of  lessons.  '  Empty  thyself,  and  God  will 
fill  thee.'  1  am  not  a  man  of  a  mystical  or  romantic  turn  of  mind  ; 
but  I  do  say  and  know,  both  from  reason  and  experience,  tliat  we 
must  be  taught,  even  though  it  be  by  being  allowed  for  awhile  to 
make  beasts  of  ourselves,  that  we  are  of  ourselves,  and  in  our- 
selves, nothing  better  than — as  you  see  in  the  savage — a  sort  of 
magnified  beast  of  prey,  all  the  more  terrible  for  its  wondrous  fa- 
culties ;  that  neither  intellect  nor  strength  of  will  can  save  us  from 
degradation;  that  they  may  be  just  as  powerful  for  evil  as  for 
good ;  and  that  what  we  want  to  make  us  true  men^  over  and 
above  that  which  we  bring  into  the  world  with  us,  is  some  sort  of 
God-given  instinct,  motive,  and  new  principle  of  life  in  us,  which 
shall  make  us  not  only  see  the  right,  and  the  true,  and  the  noble, 
but  love  it,  and  give  up  our  wills  and  hearts  to  it,  and  find  in  the 
confession  of  our  own  weakness  a  strength,  in  the  subjection  of 
our  own  will  a  freedom,  in  the  utter  carelessness  about  self  a  self- 
respect,  such  as  we  have  never  known  before. 

"  Do  not — do  not  fancy  that  any  confession  of  yours  to  me  can 
lower  you  in  my  eyes.  My  dear  young  man,  I  went  through  the 
same  devil's  sewer,  with  a  thousand  times  the  teaching  and  advan- 
tages which  you  have  had.  Who  am  I,  of  all  men,  to  throw  stones 
at  you  ?  But  take  your  sorrows,  not  to  me,  but  to  your  Father  in 
heaven.  If  that  name.  Father,  mean  anything,  it  must  mean  that 
He  will  not  turn  away  from  His  wandering  child,  in  a  way  in  which 
you  would  be  ashamed  to  turn  away  from  yours.  If  there  be  pity, 
lasting  affection,  patience  in  man,  they  must  have  come  from 
Him.  They,  above  all  things,  must  be  His  likeness.  Believe 
that  He  possesses  them  a  million  times  more  fully  than  any  human 
being. 

"  St.  Paul  knew  well,  at  least,  the  state  of  mind  in  which  you  are. 
He  said  that  he  had  found  a  panacea  for  it ;  and  his  words,  to  judge 
from  the  way  in  which  they  have  taken  root,  and  spread,  and  con- 
(juered,  must  have  some  depth  and  life  in  them.  Why  not  try 
them  ?  Just  read  the  first  nine  chapters  of  St.  Paul's  Epistle  to 
tlie  Romans,  and  write  me  your  heart  about  them.  But  never 
mind  what  anybody.  Unitarian  or  Trinitarian,*  may  say  they  mean. 
Read  them  as  you  would  a  Greek  play — taking  for  granted  that 
they  mean  the  simplest  and  most  obvious  sense  which  can  be  put 
upon  them. 

"  Let  me  hear  more — I  long  for  another  .fetter.  I  need  not  say 
that  I  consider  your  confidence  an  honor,  and  shall  keep  it  sacred. 

"  Do   not  consult  ******      \  love  him  well,  but  he  has  no 

*  His  correspondent  had  been  brought  up  a  Unitarian, 


164  Charles  Kings  ley. 

evangel  for  you.     I  should  be  glad  to  see  him  in  the  state  you  aie 
in  now.     Il  would  be  nearer  health." 

In  the  summer  of  1852  the  Right  Hon.  Thomas  Erskhie,  with 
his  family,  settled  at  Fir  Grove,  Eversley.  For  the  next  twelve 
happy  years  he  was  friend  and  counsellor  to  the  Rector,  and  to  the 
parish  his  influence  and  example  was  a  priceless  blessing.  The 
Judge  and  his  family  reheved  him  of  a  load  of  expense  and  conse- 
quent anxiety  in  the  matter  of  the  parish  charities,  which  had 
hitherto  fallen  almost  exclusively  on  the  Rector;  regular  district 
visiting  began,  and  at  Fir  Grove,  which  was  henceforth  like  a  second 
home  to  him  and  his  wife,  some  of  the  most  charming  friendships  of 
that  period  of  his  life  were  formed.  It  was  a  new  era  in  Eversley, 
and  with  fresh  help  and  fresh  hope  he  worked  cheerfully,  and  had 
the  heart  once  more  to  turn  his  thoughts  to  poetry.  The  "  Chris- 
tian Socialist"  at  this  time  came  to  an  end,  and  Parson  Lot  spoke 
his  "  last  words  "  in  its  last  number,  concluding  thus  : — 

"  Let  us  say  little  and  work  the  more.  We  shall  be  the  more 
respected,  and  the  more  feared  too  for  it.  People  will  begin  to 
believe  that  we  really  know  what  we  want,  and  really  do  intend  to 
get  it,  and  really  believe  in  its  righteousness.  And  the  spectacle 
of  silent  working  faith  is  one  at  once  so  rare  and  so  noble,  that  it 
tells  more,  even  on  opponents,  than  ten  thousand  platform  pyro- 
technics. In  the  meantime  it  will  be  no  bad  thing  for  us  if  we 
are  beaten  sometimes.  Success  at  tirst  is  dangerous,  and  defeat 
an  excellent  medicine  for  testing  people's  honesty — for  setting 
them  earnestly  to  work  to  see  what  they  want,  and  what  are  the 
best  methods  of  attaining  it.  Our  sound  thrashings  as  a  nation 
in  the  frrst  French  war  were  the  making  of  our  armies  ;  and  it  is 
good  for  an  idea,  as  well  as  for  a  man,  to  '  bear  the  yoke  in  his 
youth.'  The  return  match  will  come  off,  and  many,  who  are  now 
our  foes,  will  tlien  be  our  friends  ;  and  in  the  meantime, 

'  The  proper  impulse  has  been  given, 
Wait  a  li;tle  longer.' 

•'  Parson  Lot." 

This  was  his  last  signature  as  Parson  Lot.  At  the  same  time  he 
writes  to  the  editor  :  "If  you  want  an  Epicedium,  I  send  one. 
It  is  written  in  a  hurry,  so  if  you  like,  reject  it ;  but  I  h?.ve  tried  tfl 
get  the  maximum  of  terseness  and  melody. 


An  Epicedium.  165 

"So  die,  thou  child  of  stormy  dawn, 

Thou  winter  flower,  forlorn  of  nurse  ; 
Chilled  early  by  the  bigot's  curse, 
The  pedant's  frown,  the  worldling's  yawn. 

Fair  death,  to  fall  in  teeming  June, 

When  every  seed  which  drops  to  earth 

Takes  root,  and  wins  a  second  birth 
From  streaming  shower  and  gleaming  moon  : 

Fall  warm,  fall  fast,  thou  mellow  rain ; 

Thou  rain  of  God,  make  fat  the  land ; 

That  roots,  which  parch  in  burning  sand. 
May  bud  to  flower  and  fruit  again. 

To  grace,  perchance,  a  fairer  morn 

111  mighty  lands  beyond  the  sea, 

While  honor  falls  to  such  as  we 
From  hearts  of  heroes  yet  unborn. 

Who  in  the  light  of  fuller  day. 

Of  loving  science,  holier  laws. 

Bless  us,  faint  heralds  of  their  cause, 
Dim  beacons  of  their  glorious  way. 

Failure  ?  while  tide-floods  rise,  and  boil 
Round  cape  and  isle,  in  port  and  cove, 
Resistless,  star-led  from  above  : 
What  though  our  tiny  wave  recoil  ? 
**yuHe  (),  1852. 

"Charles  Kingslet." 

to  j.  m.  ludlow,  esq. 

EvERSLEY  Rectory,  yune  6,  1852, 

"  Too  tired,  confused,  and  happy  to  work,  I  sit  down  for  a 
diat  widi  you. 

*  1.  About  the  last  number  of  '  Hypatia.'  I  dare  say  you  are 
rigltt.  I  wanted,  for  artistic  purposes,  to  keep  those  two  chapters 
c-:>oi  and  cahn  till  just  the  very  end  of  each  ;  and  it  is  very  difficult 
t.)  be  quiet  without  also  being  dull.  But  this,  you  know,  is  onl> 
after  all  rough  copy;  and  such  running  criticisms  are  of  the  very 
gieatest  help  to  me.  About  the  '  Saga  :  '  I  sent  it  to  Max  Miiller, 
vsho  did  not  like  it  at  all,  he  said  ;  because,  though  he  highly  ap- 
proved of  the  form  (and  gave  me  a  good  deal  of  learned  advice 
ill  re),  it  was  too  rational  and  moral  and  rounded,  he  said,  and  not 
irrational  and  vast,  and  dreamy,  and  hyperbolic — like  a  true  saga. 
But  I  told  him,  that  as  a  parson  to  the  English  public,  I  was  ex- 


1 66  Charles   Kingsky. 

pected  to  point  a  moral  ;  nnd  so  I  put  MuUer's  cilicism  and  youis 
too  into  the  month  of  Agihiumd,  who  complains  of  its  respectable 
Benjamin  Franklin  tone. 

"As  for  the  monks  :  'pon  honor  they  are  slow  fellows — but  then 
they  ivcre  so  horribly  slow  in  reality.  And  I  can't  see  but  that 
Pambo's  palaver  in  my  tale  is  just  what  I  find  in  Rosweyde's  '  Vitae 
Patrum,'  and  Athanases'  '  Life  of  Anthony.'  Almost  every  ex- 
pression of  Pambos  is  a  crib  from  some  one,  word  for  word.  And 
his  instances  are  historic  ones.  Moreover,  you  must  recollect, 
that  Arsenius  was  no  mere  monk,  but  a  finished  gentleman  and 
court  intriguer — taKcr/i  ill  with  superstition.  ...  As  for  the 
Sermons,*  1  am  very  glad  you  like  any  of  them.  About  what  you 
don't  like,  I  will  tell  you  honestly,  I  think  that  I  have  not  said 
anything  too  strong.  People  must  be  cured  of  their  horrible 
notions  of  God's  arbitrary  power- — His  '  satisfaction  '  in  taking  ven- 
geance— His  inflicting  a  permanent  arbitrary  curse  as  a  penalty — 
His  being  the  author  of  suflering  or  evil  in  any  way.  I  have  been 
driven  to  it  by  this.  It  is  easy  enough  in  the  case  of  a  holy  per- 
son to  use  the  stock  phrase  of  its  having  *  pleased  God  to  afflict 
them,'  because  one  sees  that  the  affliction  is  of  use  ;  but  you  can't 
and  darn't  say  that  God  is  pleased,  i.e.,  satisfied,  or  rejoiced  to 
afflict  poor  wretched  lieathens  in  St.  Giles's,  to  whom,  as  far  as  wo 
can  see,  the  affliction  is  of  no  use,  but  the  very  reverse.  The 
school  formula  (not  a  Scripture  one  at  all,  mind)  works  very  well 
in  the  school,  when  at  his  desk  or  in  the  pulpit  the  good  pedant 
is  bringing  out  his  system  to  a  select  audience  of  '  Christian  friends,' 
and  forgetting,  he  and  they  too,  that  outside  the  walls  lies  a  whole 
world  who,  he  confesses  himself,  have  no  more  to  do  with  his  for- 
mula (at  least  till  they  find  themselves  in  hell  at  last)  than  sticks  or 
stones.  But  if  I  am  to  preach  a  gospel,  it  must  have  to  do  with 
the  i^eople  outside  the  tract-and-sermon-world,  as  well  as  inside  it ; 
and  then  the  formula,  like  most  others,  don't  fit 

"  If,  however,  I  found  it  in  Scripture,  I  should  believe  it  :  what  1 
want  is — plain  inductive  proof  from  texts.  The  '  it  has  pleased 
the  Lord  to  bruise  Him,'  is  just  the  very  opposite.  The  pith  and 
marrow  of  the  53d  of  Isaiah  being,  that  He  of  whom  it  speak.s  is 
p.filicted,  not  for  the  good  of  His  own  soul,  but  for  others — that  He 
is  ennobled  by  being  sacrificed.  It  seems  to  me,  that  the  only  way 
to  escape  the  dilemma  really  is,  to  believe  that  God  is  what  He 
has  revealed  Himself  to  be — '  A  Father.'  If  a  child  said,  '  I  was 
jiaughty,  and  it  pleased  my  father  to  whip  me  for  it,'  should  we  not 
feel  that  the  words  were  hollow  and  absurd  ?  And  if  F.  died 
to-morrow,  God  forbid  that  I  should  say  of  my  Father  in  heaven,  it 
pleased  Him  to  take  her  from  me.  If  the  Lord  Jesus  is  the  express 
image  of  His  Fathers  glory,  then  His  Father  cannot  be  like  that 

*  National  Sermons,  First  Series. 


Sorrow  and  its  Lessons.  167 

Kor  could  I  dare  believe  that  it  would  not  pain  the  Blessed  Lord 
iiifnnlely  more  than  it  would  pain  me,  if  He  was  compelled  by  my 
sins,  or  by  any  other  necessity  of  His  government  of  this  rebel- 
lious world,  to  inflict  on  me,  not  to  mention  on  the  poor  little  chil- 
dren, that  bitter  agony  ?  In  the  face  of  such  real  thoughts,  school 
terms  vanish,  and  one  has  to  rest  on  realities  ;    on  the  belief  in 

human-hearted,  loving,  sorrowing  J^ord,  and  of  A  Father  whose 

mage  He,  in  some  inexplicable  way  is or  one  would  go  mad. 

And  I  have  always  found,  in  talking  to  my  jteople  in  private,  that  all 
second-hand  talk  out  of  books  about  the  benefits  of  affliction,  was 
rain  against  a  window  pane,  blinding  the  view — but  never  entering 
But  1  can  make  a  poor  wretch  believe — '  the  Lord  Jesus  is  just  as 
sorry  as  you  that  you  have  compelled  Him  for  a  while  to  delivei 
you  over  to  Satan  for  the  punishment  of  the  flesh,  that  your  soul 
may  be  saved  thereby.'  Till  you  can  make  them  believe  that  God 
is  not  pleased,  but  ^/j-pleased  to  afflict  them,  I  never  found  them 
any  the  better  for  their  affliction.  They  take  either  a  mere  hypo- 
critically fatalist  view  of  their  sorrow,  or  else  they  are  terrified  and 
vlespftiring,  and  fancy  themselves  under  a  curse,  and  God  angry 
with  them,  and  are  ready  to  cry,  *  Let  us  curse  God  and  die  !  If 
God  be  against  me,  what  matter  who  is  forme?'  And  so  with 
*  *  *  *  I  have  been  trying  hard  to  make  him  believe  that  his 
soriows  come  from  himself  and  the  devil,  just  because  he  has  been 
believing  that  they  came  from  God.  He  has  been  believing  and 
telling  me  that  '  he  is  under  a  curse  :  that  God's  wrath  is  perma- 
nently abiding  on  him  for  acts  committed  at  school  years  ago, 
which  never  can  be  undone,  and  that  therefore — '  If  God  be 
against  him,  what  matter  who  is  for  him  ?  ' 

"  Now  I  have  been  trying  to  tell  him,  as  I  do  every  one — '  If 
<'jod  be  for  you,  what  matter  who  is  against  you  !'  I  have  beeu 
saying  to  him  what  Anthony  used  to  say,  as  Pambo  quotes  him  to 
Arsenius.  I  have  been  trying  to  make  him  understand  that  he  is 
not  in  the  devil's  hands  one  moment  longer  than  he  likes,  because 
God  is  as  much  the  enemy  of  his  sorrows  as  he  is  of  his  own,  and 
that  the  moment  he  will  allow  God  to  remove  those  sorrows,  the 

Lord  will  rejoice  in  doing  so Am  I  to  tell  hi ui  it 

j)leased  God  that  he  should  do  such  and  such  wrong,  or  am  I  to 
tell  him,  that  '  it  please  1  the  devil  into  whose  power,  not  God  but 
you  yourself  put  yourself  years  ago,  deliberately  separating  youi 
own  will  from  God,  and  determining  to  be  a  law  unto  yourself,  and 
to  do  exactly  what  was  right  in  the  sight  of  your  own  eyes  ?  IJui 
God  abhors  your  misery  ;  God  yearns  to  lift  you  out  of  it.'  If  1 
can  make  hmi  feel  that  first,  then,  and  then  only,  I  can  go  on  to 
say,  '  But  He  will  not  lift  you  out  of  it  till  it  has  taught  you  the 
lesson  which  He  intends  you  to  learn  ; '  because  then  (instead  o' 
canting  generalities,  which.  God  forgive  me,  I  too  often  use,  an'? 
feel  ready  to  vomit  my  own  dirty  soul  out  the  ncvt  minute)  l  catJ 


t68  Charles  Kings  ley. 

tell  liiai  what  lesson  God  intends  him  to  learn  by  afflict.(,n,  iianiely, 
the  very  lesson  which  I  have  been  trying  to  teach  him, — the  very 
lesson  which  I  preached  in  the  three  sermons  on  the  cholera — that 
God  is  the  foe  of  all  misery  and  affliction  ;  that  He  yearns  to  raise 
us  out  of  it,  and  to  show  us  that  in  His  i)resence  is  the  fulness  of 
life  and  joy,  and  that  nothing  but  our  own  wilfulness  and  imperfi;c- 
tion  keep  us  in  it  for  an  instant.  I  dare  not  say  this  of  A.  or  B.  I 
leave  them  to  impute  sin  to  themselves,  but  I  will  impute  to 
myself,  and  not  to  God's  will,  the  cause  of  every  finger  ache  1 
have,  because  1  know  that  I  never  had  a  sorrow  which  I  did  not 
cause  myself,  or  make  necessary  for  myself  by  some  sin  of  my 
own  ;  and  I  will  stand  by  the  service  of  the  '  Visitation  of  the 
Sick,'  which  rej^resents  the  man's  sins  as  the  reason  of  the  sickness, 
and  his  recovery  as  God's  will  and  desire.  '  He  doth  not  afflict 
willingly  or  grieve  the  children  of  men,'  is  a  plain  Scripture,  and  I 
will  not  explain  it  away  to  suit  any  theory  whatsoever  about  the 
origin  of  evil ;  but  believe  that  the  first  chapter  of  Job,  and  the  two 
accounts  of  David's  numbering  the  people,  tell  us  all  we  can  know 
about  it.  Thus,  so  far  from  allowing  that  what  1  say  of  God's 
absolute  love  of  our  happiness  and  hatred  of  our  misery  is  the  half- 
truth,  which  must  be  limited  by  anything  else,  I  say  it  is  the  whole 
truth,  the  root  truth,  which  must  limit  all  theories  about  the  benefit 
of  suff'ering,  or  any  other  theories,  and  must  be  preached  abso- 
lutely, nakedly,  unreservedly  first,  as  the  Lord  Jesus  preached  it, 
instead  of  any  such  theories  or  schemes  (however  true)  to  be  of 
any  real  benefit  to  men. 

"  I  know  all  this  is  incoherent ;  but  I  don't  pretend  to  have 
solved  this  or  any  other  problem.  If  you  prove  to  me  seven  large 
self-contradictions  in  iny  own  harangue  it  won't  matter.  All  you 
will  do,  will  be  to  drive  me  to  a  Socratic  dialogue,  which  is  the 
only  way  I  can  argue. 

"  This  is  the  end  of  my  say,  which  I  could  not  finish  the  othej 
night." 

TO   THE    SAME. 

June,  iSja. 

*  hi  Bi  owning  says  ; 

'  Come  in  any  shape, 
As  a  victor  crowned  with  vine, 
Or  a  beaten  slave, 
Only  come, 
'Tis  thy  coining  which  1  crave.' 

"  In  three  \\  eeks'  time,  or  a  month  at  furthest,  we  shall  be  de- 
lighted to  see  thee.  My  beloved  roses  will  be  just  in  glory,  the 
fihb  wi.'!  b-"  just  in  season  ;    thanks  fo  tie  late  spring.     My    old 


His  Poetic  Faculty.  169 

hunter  will  be  up  from  grass,  and  proud  to  carry  you  and  me — pel 
y;ig — to  see  the  best  of  men,  John  Paine,  saint  and  hop-grower,  of 
Farnham,  Surrey.  Also  we  will  talk  of  all  matters  in  heaven  and 
earth.  That  is,  unless  I  am  so  deeply  unthankful,  as  mdeed  I  am, 
for  all  my  blessings  that  the  Giver  tinds  it  necessary,  against  His 
will,  to  send  some  bitter  among  my  paradise  of  sweets     .... 

But  What  has  become  of  a  huge  [)aLket  I  sent  to  you  tliroiigii 

Louis?  It  contained  a  burlesque  novel  in  G.  W.  Reynolds's  style, 
which  I  had  highly  finished,  and  would  not  lose  not  for  no  money. 
It  must  and  shall  be  found ;  therefore  disgorge  ! 

"Oh!  ah  !  eh  !  .  .  .  .  I  have  laid  a  poem  and  it  won't 
hatch  !  Oh  for  Mr.  Cantelo  *  and  his  ecc-ecc-ecc  cackle  callobion  ! 
Perseus  and  Andromeda.  ...  I  have  written  a  lot 
in  blank  verse,  and  a  lot  in  the  metre  of  Hood's  'Hero  and  Lean- 
der '  (a  noble  poem,  and  so  little  known),  and  I  can't  please  my. 
self.  Rhymed  metres  run  away  with  you,  and  you  can't  get  the 
severe,  curt,  simple  objectivity  you  want  in  them,  and  unrhymed 
blank  verse  is  very  bold  in  my  hands,  because  I  won't  write 
'poetic  diction,'  but  only  plain  English — and  so  I  can't  get  mythic 
grandeur  enough.  Oh  for  the  spirit  of  Tennyson's  '  QEnone  ! ' 
VVriie,  pity,  and  advise. 

".  .  .  What  you  say  *  *  *  writes  to  a  friend  about  my  '  ergon ' 
being  poetry  is  quite  true.  I  could  not  write  '  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin,'  and  I  can  write  poetry  ....  there  is  no  denying  it  : 
1  do  feel  a  different  being  when  I  get  into  metre — J  feel  like 
an  otter  in  the  water,  instead  of  an  otter  ashore.  He  can  run  fast 
enough  ashore,  and  keep  the  hounds  at  a  tearing  galloj),  as  my  legs 
found  this  spring  in  Snowdonia,  but  when  he  takes  watei^,  then  in- 
deed he  becomes  beautiful,  full  of  divine  grace  and  freedom,  and 
exuberance  of  power.  Go  and  look  at  him  in  the  Zoological  Gar- 
dens, and  you'll  see  what  I  mean.  When  I  have  done  '  Plypatia' 
I  will  write  no  more  novels.  I  will  write  poetry — not  as  a  i)rofes- 
Bion — but  I  will  keep  myself  for  it,  and  I  do  think  I  shall  do  some- 
thing that  will  live.  I  feel  my  strong  faculty  is  that  sense  oi form, 
which,  till  I  took  to  poetry,  always  came  out  in  drawing,  drawing, 
but  poetry  is  the  true  sphere,  combining  painting  and  music  and 
history  all  in  one." 

A  friend  lent  him  an  old  horse  this  year  which  gave  hi;a 
constant  amusement,  and  kept  him  in  health,  and  he  writes  to  Mr. 
T.  Hughes  :— 

"  T  had  just  done  my  work,  and  seen  my  poor,  and  dinner  was 
commg  on  the  table  yesterday — ^just  four  o'clock, — when  the  bow- 
wows appeared  on  the  top  of  the  Mount,  trying  my  patch  of  gorse  ; 

*  Then  hatching  c'lickens  by  artificial  heat  at  tlie  Egyptian  Hall. 


170  Charles  Kingsley. 

so  I  jumped  up,  left  the  cook  shrieking,  and  off.  He  wasn't  there, 
but  I  knew  where  he  was,  for  I  keep  a  pretty  good  register  of 
foxes  (ain't  they  my  parishioners,  and  parts  of  my  flock?)  ;  and,  as 
the  poor  fellows  had  had  a  blank  day,  they  were  very  thankful  to 
find  themselves  in  five  minutes  going  like  mad.  We  had  an  hour 
and  a  half  of  it — scent  breast  high  as  the  dew  began  to  rise  (bleak 
north-easter — always  good  weather),  and  if  we  had  not  crossed  a 
second  fox,  should  have  killed  him  in  the  open  ;  as  it  was  we  lost 
him  after  sunset,  after  the  fiercest  grind  I  have  had  this  nine  years, 
and  I  went  back  to  my  dinner.  The  old  horse  behaved  beau- 
tifully ;  he  is  not  fast,  but  in  the  enclosed  woodlands  he  can  live 
np  to  any  one  and  earned  great  honor  by  leaping  in  and  out  of  the 
Loddon  ;  only  four  more  doing  it,  and  one  receiving  a  mucker.  I 
feel  three  years  younger  to-day. 

"  P.S. — The  whip  tells  me  there  were  three  in  the  river  together, 
rolling  over  horse  and  man  !  What  a  sight  to  have  lost  even  by 
being  a-head. 

"  Have  you  seen  the  story  of  the  run  of  January  7,  when  Mr. 
Woodburne's  hounds  found  at  Blackholme,  at  the  bottom  of 
Windermere,  and  ended  beyond  Helvellyn,  more  than  fifty  miles 
of  mountain.  After  Applethwaite  Crag  (where  the  field  lost  them) 
they  had  a  ring  on  High  Street  (2700  feet)  of  an  hour,  unseen  by 
mortal  eye ;  and  after  that  were  seen  by  shepherds  in  Patter- 
dale,  Brotker  Water,  top  of  Fairfield  (2900)  Dunnaid  Gap  ;  and 
then  over  the  top  of  Helvellyn  (3050)  ;  and  then  to  ground  on 
Birkside  Screes — I  cannot  find  it  on  the  maps.  But  what  a  poetic 
thing  !  Helvellyn  was  deep  in  frost  and  snow.  Oh,  that  I  could 
write  a  ballad  thereanent.  The  thing  has  taken  i)ossession  of  nie  ; 
but  I  can't  find  words.  There  was  never  such  a  run  since  we 
were  born  ;  and  think  of  hounds  doing  the  last  thirty  miles  alone  !  " 

One  of  his  many  correspondents  at  this  time  was  Frederika 
J^remer,  the  Swedish  novelist,  who,  in  the  previous  autumn  among 
«ther  visitors,  paid  a  visit  to  Eversley  Rectory.  She  hail  come  to 
Knglaud  to  see  the  Great  Exhibition,  but  she  expressed  one  still 
Rlronger  desire,  which  was  to  see  Charles  Kingsley,  whose  vvriiinp^ 
had  struck  a  deep  chord  in  her  heart.  It  would  be  needless  to  say 
that  he  thought  her  one  of  the  most  highly  cultivated  women  la- 
had  ever  conversed  with,  and  her  sweet  gentleness  and  womanli- 
ness attracted  him  still  more  than  her  intellect.  After  she  left 
Eversley,  she  sent  him  Esaia  Tegnei's  "  Frithiof's  Saga,"  with  this 
inscription:  "To  the  Viking  of  the  New  Age,  Charles  Kingsley, 
this  story  of  the  Vikings  of  the  Old,  from  a  daughter  of  the  Vikings, 
his  friend  and  admiicr,  Fiederik:!  Bremer."     He  had  several  letters 


Letter  from  Frederika  Bremer.  171 

from  hei,  but  there  is  only  space  for  this  one,  sent  with  a  copy  ol 
hei  "Mihiight  Sun." 

FREDERIKA    BREMER   TO   CHARLES     KINGSLEY. 

London,  Nov.  r,  185 1, 
*'My  young  Friend, 

''•Will  you  allow  me  to  call  you  in  writing,  in  plain  words, 
what  I  have  called  and  do  call  you  in  my  mind  and  heart  ?  You 
must  think  then  it  is  a  baptismal  of  the  spirit  and  you  must  under- 
stand it.  I  have  received  your  books.  They  shall  go  with  ine 
over  the  sea  to  my  fatherland,  and  there  in  my  silent  home,  I  shall 
read  them,  live  in  them,  enjoy  them  dee[)ly,  intensely.  I  know  it, 
know  it  all  the  better  since  I  have  been  with  you.  1  have  had  a 
dream  sometimes  of  a  young  brother — like  that  one  that  was 
snatched  away  from  me  in  his  youth  ;  like  him  but  more  ardent,  a 
young  mind  that  1  could  like,  love,  sym])athize  with,  quarrel  with, 
live  with,  influence,  be  influenced  by,  follow,  through  the  thorny 
path,  through  tropical  islands,  through  storm  and  sunshine,  higher 
and  higher  ascending  in  the  metamorphosis  of  existence.  I  had 
that  dream,  that  vision  again  when  I  saw  you,  that  made  me  so  sad 
at  parting.  But  let  that  pass.  With  much  we  must  part.  Much 
must  pass.  More  will  remain.  The  communion  of  related  souls 
will  remain  to  be  revived  again  and  again.  1  shall  hear  from  you, 
and  I  will  write  to  you.  Meantime  my  soul  will  hover  about  you 
with  the  wings  of  blessing  tlioughts.  1  send  you  some  books  ;  not 
the  one  I  thought  of,  I  could  nat  get  a  copy.  But  I  send  a  copy 
of  my  last  book,  the  '  Midnight  Sun.'  As  you  are  fond  of  Natural 
History,  the  sketch  of  the  people  and  provinces  of  Sweden  in  the 
introduction  may  interest  you,  this  nuich  belongs  to  the  natural 
history  of  a  country.  The  voyage  up  to  the  mountains  of  the  mid- 
night sun,  the  scenery  there  is  perfectly  true  to  nature  ;  I  have 
seen  and  lived  it  through  myself.  Frithiof's  Saga  I  take  peculiar 
pleasure  in  asking  you  to  accei)t,  as  a  true  follower  of  Scandinavian 
mind  and  life,  and  as  the  story  of  a  spirit  to  whom  your  own 
is  nearly  related. 

"The  universal,  the  tropical  mind  seems  more  embodied  in  man 
in  the  rigid  zones  of  the  north,  than  in  those  of  tropical  nature. 
(It  is  strange  but  it  seems  to  me  to  be  so)  the  old  Viking's  great- 
ness was  that  he  wanted  to  conquer  the  whole  world  and  make 
it  his  own.  The  mission  of  the  spiritual  Viking  seems  to  me  the 
higlier  one  to  conquer  the  world  to  God.  So  is  yours.  God  speed 
you !  and  He  will  1  God  bless  you  and  yours,  your  lovely  wife 
first  among  tiiosp,  md  lastly-  -me  as  one  of  yours  in  sisterly  love." 

Tn  the  autumn  of  1852  an  effort  was  made  to  open  the  Crystal 
Palace  on  Sundays — a  move  which  many  thought  would  steu\  \.\\q 


172  Charles  Kiiigsley. 

tide  of  Sunday  drunkenness,  and  his  friend   Mi     George   Gvov« 
wrote  to  him  on  the  subject.     He  replied — 

TO  GEORGE    GROVE,  ESQ. 

October  28,  l8^a. 

"  I  am  in  sad  perj^lexity  about  your  letter.  I  have  been  talking 
it  over  with  Maurice.  He  says  he  shall  take  the  matter  in  hand 
in  his  Lincoln's  Inn  sermons,  and  that  it  is  a  more  fit  thiiii^  for  a 
London  than  for  a  country  parson,  being  altogether  against  my 
ineddHng.  My  great  hitch  is  that  my  family  are  strongly  the  other 
way,  and  that  although  my  father  himself  is  very  liberal  on  the  mat- 
ter, it  would  pain  him  dreadfully  to  see  me  in  the  wars  widi  the 
Evangelical  party  on  that  point.  His  health  is  bad,  and  he  is  very 
nervous.  You  are  sure  to  carry  your  point.  But  this  I  can  do — 
1  will  sound  tlirough  a  friend  the  ^^r;//X^''  Chronicle  and  Guardian. 
A  little  good  management  on  your  company's  part  would  get  the 
whole  of  the  High  Church  on  their  side — you  and  the  company  are 
as  right  as  a  church  literally,  for  the  Catholic  doctrine  and  disci- 
pline are  on  your  side 

"Don't  fancy  me  afraid.  You  and  the  world  know  that  I  am  not 
that  :  but  if  I  were  to  tell  you  all  tlie  little  ins  and  outs  which 
make  me  shrink,  you  would  see  that  I  was  right." 

TO    THE  SAMS. 

January  2,  1853. 

"  I  send  you  an  ex-cathedra  opinion,  whicli  may  do  even 
more  good  than  if  I  a[)[)ended  my  too  notorious  name.  But  yet  I 
use  freely  a  pami)hlet,  here  enclosed,  by  the  Rev.  Baldwin  Brown,* 
which  I  think  the  wisest  and  most  eloquent  speech,  save  Maurice's, 
which  I  have  seen  on  the  matter. 

"  FOR  PUBLICATION. 

"  My  dear  Grove, — I  am  much  shocked  to  hear  that  this  Anti- 
Crystal-Palace  Agitation  is  injuring  the  clergy  in  the  estimati(>n  ol 
the  laity.  Those  who  have  taken  part  in  it  must  bear  their  3\vn 
burden  ;  for  whatsoever  they  have  said  and  done  is  really,  and 
ought  to  be  clearly  understood  to  be,  the  consequence  of  their  owr 
party  opii'ions,  and  not  of  the  doctrines  either  of  the  Bible  or  of 
the  Church  of  England.  The  Church  of  England  knows  nothing 
of  that  definition  of  the  Sabbath  as  a  fast  ;  which  the  Puritans  bor- 
rowed  from   the  Pharisees  and   Rabbins  of  the  most  fallen  and 

•Minister  of  Brixton  Independent  Church,  author  of  "  The  Higher  Life,*" 
"The  Home  Life,"  and  a  remarkable  little  volume  published  in  1875,  enlilled 
'  The  Doctrine  of  Annihilation  in  the  Light  of  the  G  spel  of  Love." 


Letter  to  George  Grove.  173 

hideous  period  of  Judaism,  and  which  the  Lord  denounced  again 
and  again  as  contrary  to,  and  destructive  of,  the  very  idea  and 
meaning  of  the  Sabbath.  The  Church  of  England  calls  Sunday  a 
feast-day,  and  not  a  fast ;  and  it  is  neither  contrary  to  her  ritual 
letter,  nor  to  her  spirit,  to  invite  on  that  day  every  Englishman  to 
refresh  himself  with  the  sight  of  the  wonders  of  God's  earth,  or 
with  the  wonders  of  men's  art,  which  she  considers  as  the  results 
of  God's  teaching  and  inspiration. 

"The  letter,  moreover,  as  well  as  the  spirit  of  the  Bible  is  di- 
rectly in  favor  of  the  arguments  brought  forward  by  the  Crystal 
Palace  Company's  advocates.  The  Sabbath,  it  declares,  was  made 
for  man.  And  man,  it  declares  to  be,  no*"  a  mere  '  soul  to  be 
saved '  (an  expression  nowhere  used  in  Scnptur?,  in  its  modern 
sense  of  a  spirit,  to  be  got  safely  through  to  some  future  state  of 
bliss),  but  as  consisting  of  body,  soul,  and  spirit — meaning  by  soul 
what  we  call  intellect  and  feelings.  And  therefore  any  institution, 
which  like  the  Crystal  Palace  tends  to  give  healthy  and  innocent 
rest  and  refreshment  to  body,  mind,  and  tastes,  is  in  accordance  in 
a  lower  sphere  certainly,  but  still  directly  in  accordance  with  the 
letter  of  the  Sabbatical  institution,  as  a  day  of  rest  made  for  man 
as  man. 

"  I  think  that  you  would  find, — were  any  real  danger  to  the  Crys- 
tal Palace  scheme  to  require  a  wide-spread  agitation  in  its  favor, 
that  the  High  Church  party,  as  well  as  the  great  majority  of  '  moder- 
ate churchmen,'  would  coincide  in  this  view,  and  that  the  present 
outcry  would  be  found  to  have  proceeded  only  from  that  rapidly 
decreasing  Low  Church  party,  which  tries  to  unite  most  eclectically 
and  inconsistently  a  watery  Calvinism  with  the  profession  of  the 
Catholic  creeds  and  formularies  of  the  Church  of  England.  Firmly 
convinced  that  in  this  case  the  Vox  Populi  coincides  with  the  Vox 
Dei, 

"  I  remain,  yourr  faithfully, 

"A  High  Church  Parson" 


CHAPTER  XII. 

1853- 

Aged  34. 

Ihe   Rector  in  his  Churcli — "Hypatia"   Letters  from  Chevalier  Buusen— Mr 
Maurice's  Theok)gical  Essays — Correspondence  with  Thomas  Cooper. 

The  books  which  entailed  so  many  letters,  now  also  attracted 
strangers  to  Eversley  Church  on  Sunday.  Officers  from  Sandhurst 
would  constantly  walk  over,  and  occasionally  a  stray  clergyman 
would  be  seen  in  the  free  sittings. 

"Twenty-five  Village  Sermons"  had  been  published  in  1849,  ^^''^ 
had  been  brought  into  notice  by  a  review  in  the  "Times,"  and 
"  Sermons  on  National  Subjects,"  perhaps  the  most  remarkable  of 
all  his  volumes  of  sernions,  had  just  been  brought  out.  His 
preaching  was  becoming  a  great  power.  It  was  the  speech  of  a 
live  man  to  living  beings. 

"Yes,  my  friends,"  he  would  say,  "these  are  real  thoughts. 
They  are  what  come  into  people's  minds  every  day;  and  I  am  here 
to  talk  to  you  about  what  is  really  going  on  in  your  soul  and  mine ; 
not  to  repeat  to  you  doctrines  at  second  hand  out  of  a  book,  and 
say,  '  There,  that  is  what  you  have  to  believe  and  do,  and  if  you  do 
not,  you  will  go  to  hell;'  but  to  speak  to  you  as  men  of  like  pas- 
sions with  myself;  as  sinning,  sorrowing,  doubting,  struggling  hu- 
man beings  ;  to  talk  to  you  of  what  is  in  my  own  heart,  and  will  be 
in  your  hearts  too,  some  day,  if  it  has  not  been  already.     .     .     ," 

The  Collect  he  invariably  used  before  preaching  for  twenty  foui 
years  was  the  one  for  the  Second  Sunday  in  Advent,  ti'ii  about  six 
years  ago,  when  the  question  of  prayer  before  sermon  being  dis- 
cussed in  his  parish,  he  consulted  his  diocesan  (Samuel,  Bishop 
Wilb^^i force),  and  decided  to  abide  by  his  opinion.  From  that  time 
he  used  in  the  morning  the  Invocation  to  the  Trinity,  in  the  after- 
noon the  usual  Collect  and  Lord's  Prayer. 

After  he  gave  out  his  text,  the  poor  men  in  the  free  sittings  un- 
der the  pulpit  would  turn  towards  him,  and  settle  themselves  into 


j4s  a  Preacher. 


171 


an  altitude  of  fixed  attention.  In  preaching  he  would  try  to  keej 
still  and  calm,  and  free  from  all  gesticulation  \  but  as  he  -vvent  on, 
he  had  to  grip  and  clasp  the  cushion  on  which  his  sermon  rested, 
in  order  ♦■o  restrain  the  intensity  of  his  own  emotion  ;  and  when, 
in  spite  of  himself,  his  hands  would  escape,  they  /vould  be  lifted 
up,  the  fingers  of  the  right  hand  working  with  a  peculiar  hovering 


EVERSLEY   CHURCH. 


mov^ement,  of  which  he  was  quite  unconscious  ;  his  eyes  seamed 
on  fire,  his  whole  frame  worked  and  vibrated.  It  was  riveticg  to 
see  as  well  as  h^ar  him,  as  his  eagle  glance  penetrated  every  cor- 
ner of  the  church,  and  whether  there  were  few  or  many  theie,  it 
was  enough  for  him  that  those  who  were  present  were  human  be- 
ings, standing  between  two  worlds,  and  that  it  was  his  terrible  re 
sponsibiUty  as  well  as  high  privilege,  to  deliver  a  message  to  each 
Jind  all.  The  great  festivals  of  the  church  seemed  to  inspire  him, 
ivnd  his   words   would  rise  into   melody.     At   Chrstmas,   Easter, 


iy6  Charles  Kings  ley. 

Whitsuntide,  and  on  the  Holy  Trinity  especially,  his  sermon  be 
came  a  song  of  gladness ;  during  Advent,  a  note  of  solemn  warn 
ing.  On  Good  Friday,  and  through  the  Passion  week  evening  ser- 
vices, it  would  be  a  low  and  mournful  chant,  uttered  in  a  deep, 
plaintive,  and  at  moments,  almost  agonised  tone,  which  hushed  his 
congregation  into  a  silence  that  might  be  felt. 

The  evening  services  for  the  Passion  Week  were  given  at  an 
houi  to  suit  the  laboring  men  on  their  way  home  from  work,  when 
a  few  would  drop  into  church,  and  to  those  few  he  preached  a  short 
sermon  of  about  fifteen  minutes,  which  a  London  congregation 
would  have  gone  miles  to  hear.  Those  who  were  present,  some- 
times only  fifteen  to  twenty  besides  his  own  family,  will  not  forget 
the  dimly-lighted  chuch  in  the  twilight  of  the  spring  evenings,  with 
its  little  sprinkling  of  worshippers,  and  the  silence  as  of  death  and 
the  grave,  when  with  a  look  which  he  never  seemed  to  have  at  any 
other  season,  he  followed  Christ  through  the  sufferings  of  the  Holy 
Week,  beginning  with  either  the  liii.  or  Ixiii.  of  Isaiah,  on  each  day 
its  own  event,  from  the  First  Communion  to  the  Betrayal — the 
Denial  of  Peter,  the  fate  of  Judas,  on  to  the  foot  of  the  Cross. 
A.nd  when  "  the  -worst  was  over,"  wuh  what  a  gasp  of  relief  was 
Easter  Even,  with  its  rest  and  quietness,  reached  ;  and  with  signi 
ficant  words  about  that  intermediate  state,  in  which  he  so  deeply 
believed,  he  would  lead  our  thoughts  from  the  peace!  il  sepulchre 
in  the  garden  to  the  mysterious  gate  of  Paradise. 

Passion  Week  was,  to  him,  a  time  of  such  real  and  ( trrible  pain 
that  he  always  thanked  God  when  it  was  over ;  and  or  Easter  day 
he  would  burst  forth  into  a  song  of  praise  once  more,  foi  the  Blessed 
Resurrection  not  only  of  Christ  the  Lord,  but  of  man,  and  cf  the 
dear  earth  he  loved  so  well — spring  after  winter,  birtli  after  death- 
Kvery  gnat  that  danced  in  the  sunshine  on  the  blessed  Easter 
/aorn ;  every  blade  of  grass  in  the  dear  churchyard  spoke  of  hope 
and  joy  and  a  living  God.  And  the  flowers  in  the  church,  and  tht' 
({raves  decked  with  bright  wreaths,  would  add  to  his  gladness,  as  he 
paced  up  and  down  before  service.  Many  a  testimony  has  come 
U  th'i  blessing  of  those  village  sermons.  "Twenty-five  village 
sermons,"  said  a  clergyman  working  in  a  great  city  parish,  "  like  a 
plank  to  a  drowning  man  kept  me  from  sinking  in  the  'blackness 
of  darkness,'  which  surrounds  the  unbeliever.  Leaning  upon  these, 
vhile  carried  about  by  every  wind  of  doctrine,  I  drifted  hither  an^ 


PreparatioiL  of  Sermons.  177 

ihither,  at  last,  tlianks  be  to  God,  I  found  standing  ground."  Bui 
none  who  nierely  read  them  could  tell  what  it  was  to  hear  them, 
and  to  see  him,  and  the  look  of  inspiration  on  his  face,  as  he 
preached  them.  While  to  those  his  nearest  and  dearest,  who  looked 
forward  with  an  ever  fresh  intensity  of  interest  to  the  Sunday 
eervices  week  after  week,  year  after  year,  each  sermon  came  with 
double  emphasis  from  the  knowledge  that  the  daily  life  of  the  week 
f!ays  was  no  contradiction  to,  but  a  noble  carrying  out  of  the  words 
preached  in  church. 

His  sermons  owed  much  to  the  time  he  gave  himself  for  prepara- 
tion. The  Sunday  services,  while  they  exhausted  him  physically, 
yet  seemed  to  have  the  effect  of  winding  his  spirit  up  to  higher 
flights.  Aiid  often  late  on  Sunday  evening  he  would  talk  over 
with  his  wife  the  subject  and  text  of  the  next  week's  sermon.  On 
Monday,  he  would,  if  possible,  take  a  rest,  but  on  Tuesday,  to  use 
his  own  words,  it  would  be  set  on  the  stocks.  The  text  already 
chosen,  the  method  of  treating  it  was  sketched,  and  the  first  hall 
carefully  thought  out  before  it  was  dictated  or  written,  then  put  by 
for  a  day  or  two,  while  yet  it  was  simmering  in  his  brain,  and  finished 
on  Friday.     He  seldom  put  off  his  sermon  till  Saturday. 

This  year,  begun  at  Eversley  and  ended  at  Torquay,  was  one  of 
much  anxiety  and  incessant  labor.  Unable  to  get  a  pupil,  he  was 
therefore  unable  to  keep  a  curate.  The  Sunday  services,  night 
schools,  and  cottage  lectures,  were  done  single-handed;  and  if  he 
seemed  to  withdraw  from  his  old  associates  in  the  cause  of  co- 
oiK'ration,  and  of  the  working  men  in  London,  it  was  not  from 
want  of  interest,  but  of  time  and  strength.  He  went  only  once  to 
London,  to  lecture  for  the  Needlewomen's  Association.  Constant 
sickness  in  the  parish  and  serious  illness  in  his  own  household  gave 
him  great  anxiety ;  while  the  proceedings  of  the  King's  College 
Council  against  his  friend  and  teacher,  Mr.  Maurice,  on  the  ground 
of  the  views  on  eternal  punishment,  published  in  his  Theological 
Essays,  depressed  him  deeply.  But  the  year  had  its  lights  as  well 
as  shadows;  he  had  the  comfort  of  seeing  the  first  good  national 
school  built  and  opened  in  his  parish ;  friends,  new  and  old  came 
and  went — Mr.  Maurice  frequently — Bishop  McDougall  of  Labuan, 
and  Mr.  Alfred  Tennyson.  His  intimacy  with  Bishop  Wilberforce, 
Chevalier  Bunsen,  and  Miss  Mitford  deepened  ;  he  made  the  per- 
sonal acquaintance  of  several  of  his  hitherto  unknown  correspond 
12 


1  yS  Charles  Kings  ley. 

ents,  and  met  Mr.  Robert  Browning  and  his  wife,  for  the  first  .ime, 
at  the  house  of  muUial  friends. 

"Hynalia"  this  year  came  out  as  a  book;  and  by  thoughtful 
people  was  recognized  not  only  as  a  most  valuable  page  of  history, 
but  as  a  real  work  of  art.  In  one  section  of  the  English  Church  it 
made  him  bitter  enemies,  more  bitter,  perhaps,  than  were  stirred 
ap  by  either  "Yeast"  or  the  "Saint's  Tragedy."  The  work  was 
more  appreciated  in  Germany  than  in  England  for  some  years. 

"  I  delight  in  Hypatia"  said  Chevalier  Bunser,  when  reading  it 
as  a  serial  the  year  before,  "  only  I  cannot  get  over  the  hardship 
against  our  conunon  ancestors  in  presenting  them  in  that  drunken 
mood  in  which  they  appear  as  lawless  and  blood-sucking  barbarians 
and  clironic  berserkers,  rather  than  what  I  thought  them  to  be.  But 
J  have  only  just  landed  Philammon  at  Alexandria,  and  therefore 
am  not  able  to  judge." 

The  following  letters,  written  after  the  book  appeared  as  a  whole, 
are  doubly  interesting  from  their  allusions  to  Baron  Bunsen's  own 
"  Hyppolytus"  : 

CHEVALIER    BUNSEN    TO    REV.    C.    KINGSLEV. 

Prussia  House,  May,  1853. 

"I  want  just  to  send  you  a  line  to  wish  you  joy  for  the  wonderful 
picture  of  the  inward  and  outward  life  of  Hypatia's  age,  and  of  the 
creation  of  such  characters  as  hers  and  Raphael's,  and  the  other  pro- 
togonists.  I  have  such  a  longing  to  see  you  quietly  ....  that 
I  had  conceived  a  hope  you  might  be  induced  to  pay  me  a  visit  at 
the  seaside.  One  day  by  the  sea  is  worth  more  than  a  month  in 
this  distracting  metropolis,  or  Great  Sahara. 

"  I  have  written,  with  all  the  feeling  of  awe  and  responsibility,  a 
confession  of  my  faith,  as  conclusive  of  the  Preface  to  my  '  Ignatius 
and  Hyppolytus.'  ....  I  am  anxious  to  read  it  to  )ou,  and 
to  speak  it  to  you. 

"  You  have  performed  a  great  and  lasting  work,  but  it  is  a  bold 
undertaking.  You  fire  over  the  heads  of  the  public,  o(ov  vuv  dv^punoi 
iTov,  as  Nestor  says,  the  pigmies  of  the  circulating  library.  Besides, 
j'ou  have  (pardon  me)  wronged  your  own  child  most  cruelly.  Are 
you  aware  vhat  many  people  object  to  reading  or  allowing  it  to 
be  read,  because  the  author  says  in  the  Preface,  it  is  not  written 
for  those  of  pure  mind  ?  *     My  daughters  exclaimed  when  they  read 

*  The  passage  referred  lo  is  the  (  pening  paragraph  of  tlie  Preface  where  tho 
author  safs,  "A  picture  Df  life  in  the  fifth  century  must  needs  cent  lin  muck 


Lctte7's  from  Ihiusen.  179 

that  in  the  Preface,  after  having  read  to  tlieir  iiiamina  the  whole  in 
numbers  to  general  edification,  as  t'.iey  do  Bible  and  Shakspeare 
every  day.  I  should  wish  you  to  have  said,  that  in  describing  and 
picturing  an  age  like  that,  there  must  here  and  there  be  nudities 
as  in  nature  and  as  ni  the  Bible.  Nudities  there  are  because  there 
is  truth.  For  God's  sake,  let  that  Preface  not  come  before  Ger> 
many  without  some  modified  expression.  Impure  must  be  the 
minds  who  can  be  offended  or  hurt  by  your  picture  !  What  offends 
and  hurts  is  the  modern  Lusternheit,  that  veiling  over  indecency 
exciting  imagination  to  draw  off  the  veil  in  order  to  see  not  God's 
naked  nature,  but  corrupted  man's  indecency.  Forgive  that  I  take 
the  child's  part  against  tlie  father  !  But,  indeed,  that  ex|)ression  is 
not  the  right,  and  unjust  to  yourself,  and  besides  highly  detrimental 
to  the  book. 

"  You  know  of  the  persecution  of  the  Evangelicals,  and  High  and 
dry  against  Maurice !  I  go  to-morrow  to  Hare,  and  stay  till 
Tuesday.  I  am  sure  you  would  be  more  than  welcome  there,  with 
me  and  Savage  Landor,  who  arrives  also  to-morrow  ;  but  I  am 
afraid  you  are  not  so  easily  movable.  There  is  place  at  the  rectory 
or  at  Lime  ;  Mrs.  Augustus  Hare  is  there  and  well. 

"1  depend,  however,  on  your  being  my  guest  at  Carlton  Terrace. 
Take  it  as  a  joint  invitation  from  my  wife  and  myself  to  Mrs.  Kings- 
ley  and  yourself.  I  have  been  moved  to  write  strange  things  in 
the  first  volume  of  the  new  '  Hippolytus,'  and  in  the  Key  (to  which 
Max  Miiller  has  contributed  two  most  prodigious  chapters).  You 
know  the  spirit  writes  what  he  will,  and  must.  The  times  before  us 
are  brimful  of  destruction — therefore  of  regeneration.  The  Nemesis 
is  coming,  as  Ate. 

"  Farewell, 

"  Ever  yours  faithfully, 

"  BUNSEN." 


which  will  be  painful  to  ar/y  reader,  and  which  the  young  and  innocent  will  do 
wall  to  leave  altogether  unread.  It  has  to  represent  a  very  hideous,  thou'^h  a 
»ery  great,  age  ;  one  of  those  critical  and  cardinal  eras  in  the  history  of  the 

human  race,  in  which  virtues  and  vices  manifest  themselves  side  by  side even. 

at  times,  in  the  same  person — with  the  most  startling  openness  and  power.  One 
who  writes  of  such  an  era  labors  under  a  troublesome  disadvantage.  He  dare 
not  tell  how  evil  people  were ;  he  will  not  be  belfeved  if  he  tell  how  good  they 
were.  In  the  present  case  that  disadvantage  is  doubled  ;  for  while  the  sins  oi 
the  Church,  however  heinous,  were  still  such  ar  admit  of  being  expressed  in 
wonls,  the  sins  of  the  heathen  world  against  which  she  fought,  were  utterly  un 
dsscribable  ;  and  th*  Christian  apologist  is  thus  compelled,  for  the  sake  of 
decencv,  to  state  the  Churclr's  case  far  more  weakly  than  the  facts  deserve.— 
Preface  to  "  Hypat-a,  *  lii. 


1 8c  Charles  Kingsley. 

Again  the  Chevalier  writes  : 

Septembet    i6,   1S53. 

**  I  must  express  to  you,  in  a  few  words,  how  much  I  rejoice  in 
hearing  that  you  intend  to  propose  to  Messrs.  Tauchnitz  to  under- 
take a  German  translation  of  your  admirable  '  Hypatia.'  You 
know  what  I  think  about  it.  You  have  succeeded  in  epicizing, 
poetically  and  philosophically,  one  of  the  most  interesting  and 
eventful  epochs  of  the  world,  clothing  the  spirits  of  that  age  in  the 
most  attractive  fable  ;  you  resuscitate  the  real  history  of  the  time 
and  its  leading  characters  so  poetically  that  we  forget  that  instruc- 
tion is  conferred  upon  us  in  every  page.  I  find  no  book  to  which  I 
can  compare  'Hypatia'  but  Hope's  '  Anastasius.'  But  how  much 
more  difficult,  and  how  much  more  important  is  the  subject  you 
treat  !  I  find  that  my  friends,  not  only  here,  but  also  in  Germany, 
share  my  opinion.  1  have  sent  a  copy  to  Abaken,  expressing  to 
him  my  anxiety  it  should  be  well  translated.  It  requires  a  man  of 
unusual  knowledge  and  talents  to  do  justice  to  the  original  and  to 
the  subject.  Now  nobody  can  manage  that  better  than  the  distin- 
guished house  with  which  I  understand  you  are  connected.  May  I 
soon  hear  that  a  translation  is  coming  forth  ? 

"  I  hope  you  may  be  able  to  come  to  town  during  the  beautiful 
months  of  quiet.  I  shall  be  settled  there  for  good  from  15th  Oc 
tober.  'Hippolytus'  is  coming  out  in  a  second  edition,  but  as 
three  different  works. 

"  a,  Hippolytus  and  his  Age  (first  volume),  newly-written,  to 
match  the  J'icture  of  the  congregational  life  in  the  second  volume. 
Two  volumes. 

"  b,  'Y\\Q.  Philosophical  Key  \.o  xi ;  or  Outlines  of  a  Philosoph} 
of  the  History  of  Language  and  Religion.     Two  volumes. 

"c,  A?ialecta  Ante-Nicaena  (the  philosophical  key).  Three  vol 
limes. 

"  When  you  come  to  town  you  must  stay  with  me  at  Carlton 
Terrace,  that  we  may  have  quiet  night  hours  and  (if  you  are  an 
early  riser)  morning  hours  tDgether,  unter  vier  Atigen,  as  we  say 
In  the  meantime,  I  remain, 

"  My  dear  Mr.  Kingsley, 

"  Ever  yours  faithfully, 

"  BUNSEN." 

* 

An  attack  on  Mrs.  Gaskell  produced  the  following  letter ; 

EvERSLEY  Rectory,  July  25,  iv^«3 
"  My  DEAR  Madam, 

"  I  am  sure   that  you  will   excuse  my  writing   to  you  thu« 
abruptly  when  you  read  the  cause  of  my  writing. 

*'I  am  told,  to  my  great  astorishment,  that  you  live  hearc) 


Essays  of  Alaiifice.  i8i 

painful  speeches  on  account  of  '  Ruth ; '  what  «vas  tol  d  me  raised 
all  my  indignation  and  disgust. 

"  Now  1  have  read  only  a  little  (though,  of  course,  I  kncnv  the 
story)  of  the  book  ;  for  the  same  reason  that  I  cannot  read  '  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin,'  or  'Othello,'  or  'The  Bride  of  Lammermoor.'  I( 
is  too  painfully  good,  as  I  found  before  I  had  read  half  a  volume. 

"  But  this  I  can  tell  you,  that  among  all  my  large  acquaintance 
I  never  heard,  or  have  heard,  but  one  unanimous  opinion  of  the 
beauty  and  righteousness  of  the  book,  and  that,  above  all,  from 
real  ladies,  and  really  good  women.  If  you  could  have  heard  the 
things  which  1  heard  spoken  of  it  this  evening  by  a  thorough  High 
Church  fine  lady  of  the  world,  and  by  her  daughter,  too,  as  pure 
and  pious  a  soul  as  one  need  see,  you  would  have  no  more  doubt 
than  1  have,  that  whatsoever  the  '  snobs '  and  the  bigots  may 
think,  English  people,  in  general,  have  but  one  opinion  of  '  Ruth,' 
and  that  is,  one  of  utter  satisfaction, 

"  I  doubt  not  you  have  had  this  said  to  you  already  often.  Be- 
lieve me,  you  may  have  it  said  to  you  as  often  as  you  will  by  the 
purest  and  most  refined  of  English  women. 

"  May  God  bless  you,  and  help  you  to  write  many  more  such 
books  as  you  have  already  written,  is  the  fervent  wish  of 

"  Your  very  faithful  servant, 

"  C.  KlNGSLEY." 

Mr.  Maurice's  volume  of  "Theological  Essays"  appeared  at  this 
tune,  and  the  subject  of  one,  on  Eternal  Life  and  Death,  was 
the  cause  of  his  dismissal  from  King's  College  by  Dr.  Jelf  and  the 
Committee.  The  subject  had  occupied  Mr.  Kingsley's  mind  foi 
years,  and  the  persecution  of  his  friend  and  teacher  roused  all  his 
chivalry. 

"  The  Time  and  Eternity  Question,"  he  says  in  writing  to  a 
friend,  "is  coming  before  the  public  just  now  in  a  way  which  may 
seriously  affect  our  friend  Maurice,  unless  all  who  love  him  make 
good  fight. 

"Maurice's  essays,  as  you  say,  will  constitute  an  epoch.  If  the 
Church  of  England  rejects  them,  her  doom  is  fixed.  She  will  rol 
and  liie,  as  the  Alexandrian  did  before  her.  If  she  accepts  them 
—  not  as  'a  code  complete,'  but  as  hints  towards  a  new  method 
of  thought,  she  may  save  herself  still." 

TO    REV.    F.  D.  MAURICE. 

EVERSLEY,  yuly  14,  1853. 

"  I  have  delayed  writing  to  you  about  the  Essays  *  till  1  had 
-ead  them  over  many  times,  which  I  have  now  done. 

*  "  Theologica'  Essays." 


1 82  Charles  Kingsley. 

"  That  I  agree  and  admire,  is  needless  to  be  said.  It  seems  tr 
me  that  the  book  marks  a  new  era  in  English  ecclesiastical  history 
....  not  that  _>w/,  single-handed,  have  caused  it :  but  thai 
you  have  justified  and  expressed  what  is  seething  in  the  minds  ol 
so  many.  I  was  utterly  astonished  at  finding  in  page  after  page 
things  wh;ch  I  had  thought,  and  hardly  dared  to  confess  to  myself, 
much  less  to  preach.  However,  you  have  said  them  now;  and  I, 
gaining  courage,  have  begun  to  speak  more  and  more  boldly, 
thanks  to  your  blessed  example,  in  a  set  of  sermons  on  the 
Catechism,    accompanying    your    angels'    trump    on    my    private 

penny-whistle Nevertheless,  a  tail  of  penny-whistles, 

if  they  will  only  keep  tune  with  you,  may  be  useful.  For  there  is 
much  in  your  book  which  will  be  caviare.  I  believe  firmly  that  it 
will  do  more  good  to  the  infidels  and  heretics  than  to  the  orthodox, 
and  I  will  tell  you  why.  The  former  are  not  hampered  in  min(f 
by  those  forced  dogmatic,  systematised  interpretations  of  theologir. 
words,  which  are  destroying  too  often  in  the  latter  the  plain  sense 
of  right  and  wrong,  truth  and  falsehood  ;  and  they  will,  therefore, 
take  your  words  in  their  simple  and  honest  meaning  better  than 
'believers'  and  'churchmen,'  who,  perhaps  unconsciously  to  them- 
selves, will  be  substituting  for  each  of  your  Catholic  expressions 
some  ghost  of  a  meaning  which  they  got  from  Crossman  or  Watts. 
Therefore  you  must  expect  good  pious  people  to  accuse  you  of 
misinterpreting  scripture  and  preaching  a  new  gospel  (which, 
indeed,  you  do),  and  of  the  very  faults  of  which  you  and  I  should 
accuse  them,  that  is  of  partial  induction  from  those  texts  which 
seem  to  make  for  your  '  theory,'  and  here  we  of  the  penny-wliistlcs 
shall  be  of  use  to  you,  in  verifying  your  inductions  by  applying 
them  to  fresh  texts. 

"  Moreover,  you  must  submit  to  be  accused  of  sentim^ntalism 
because  you  appeal  to  inward  experiences — by  the  S  idducees, 
because  they  have  not  had  these  experiences,  or  don't  like  to  con- 
fess them  to  themselves — and  by  the  Pharisees,  because  ihey  allow 
no  spiritual  experiences  to  be  subjects  of  theologic  inquiry, 
except  those  which  fit  into  their  system  ;  and  so,  indeed,  as  1  have 
more  than  once  dared  to  tell  them,  both  disbelieve  that  man  was 
made  in  the  image  of  God,  and  that  God  was  made  :Tian  of  the 
substance  of  his  mother. 

"  On  the  whole,  the  outlook  is  perfectly  awful,  when  one  sees 
the  mountains  of  rubbish  which  have  to  be  cleared  before  people 
can  be  made  to  imderstand  their  Bible  and  prayer-book — and  still 
more  awful,  when  one  feels  as  I  do,  that  I  have  just  as  much  dirt 
and  dust  to  get  out  of  my  cwn  brain  and  heart,  before  I  can  see 
to  take  the  mote  out  of  my  brother's  eye  ;  and  still  more  awful, 
when  one  feels,  as  one  does,  that  though  you  are  utterly  right  in 
asserting  what  the  Bible  says  to  be  the  keynote  of  our  ciceds  and 
prayer-book,  yet  that  there  is  much,  especially  in  the  lat.er  parts  o/ 


F.  D.  Maurice  and  King's   College.         183 

:he  prayer-book,  which  does  chime  in  with  the  popular  supe  1  flitious ; 
that  though  the  compilers  were  indeed  inspired,  and  rais(;d  most 
miraculously  above  their  age,  yet  they  were  not  always  consistent 
in  seeing  what  was  to  be  said,  any  more  than  Augustine  was  .  and 
then  comes  the  terrible  business  of  being  tempted  to  twist  the 
tenth  word,  in  order  to  make  it  fit  the  other  nine,  and  of  bt,ing 
called  an  eclectic,  and  of  not  being  sure  whether  one  is  not  one 
really.  Not  that  I  am  frightened  at  any  such  awful  prospect. 
If  God  is  with  us  who  can  be  against  us  ?  If  He  has  taught  us  so 
far,  we  may  trust  Him  to  teach  us  more,  and  make  our  strength  as 
our  day  is.  And  if,  as  one  is  bound  to  expect,  He  does  not  shiow 
us  the  whole  truth  in  this  life,  but  lets  us  stop  short  somewhere, 
why  what  matter  ?  Let  Him  send  by  the  hand  of  whom  He  will. 
He  has  set  us  to  carry  the  lamp  in  the  lamp-race  a  little  further 
on — why  should  we  pine  at  having  to  pass  it  on  to  fresh  runners? 
It  is  quite  honor  enough  (and  1  suspect,  before  we  get  it  done,  we 
'shall  find  it  quite  work  enough)  to  get  one  soul  saved  alive,  or  onu 
truth  cleared  from  rubbish,  before  we  die." 


>/>',  1853. 

"  It  seems  iq  me  that  two  courses  only  are  open  to  you,  my  dear 
master.  One  :  to  resign  your  King's  College  posts  at  once,  with  a 
solemn  and  sincere  printed  protest  against  being  required  to  believe 
and  say  things  which  the  Articles  of  the  Church  of  England  do  not 
require.  Or,  to  fight  it  out  to  the  very  last  and  compel  them  to  the 
odium  of  rejecting  you. 

"  Either  course  would  excite  the  sympathy  and  indignation  of  vast 
numbers.     It  remains  to  be  considered. 

"  I.  By  which  process  most  truth  would  be  hammered  out  by  the 
strokes. 

"  2.  Which  would  give  least  scandal  to  the  Church,  i.e.,  which 
would  give  least  handle  for  heretics  of  the  atheistic  school  to  say, 
*  Of  course  his  opinions  are  incompatible  with  the  Church.  We 
always  knew  it,  now  it  is  proved;  and  he  must  jrin  us,  or  start  a 
schism  of  his  own.' 

"Now  as  for  the  first  count.  I  seriously  think  that  by  fighting 
as  long  as  you  can,  you  might  bring  the  whole  eschatological  que3« 
tion  up  into  the  field  in  such  a  way,  that  they  would  be  forced  not 
only  to  give  their  opinions  but  their  reasons,  or  unreasons  fcT  them  ; 
and  then,  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  the  triumph  is  pretty  sure,  as  it 
IS  written,  '  Oh,  that  my  enemy  would  write  a  book  ! ' 

"  I  think,  too,  that  in  this  way  so  much  of  the  real  liberality  of 
our  Articles  and  Liturgy  might  be  made  evident,  as  would  prevent 
the  heretics  having  arjy  important  case  against  the  Church,  a'nd 
turn    the  wrath   on  to  the  present  generation  of  religionist  1,  and 


1S4  Charles  Kingsley. 

on  the  bishops,   as   I   wish    to    save   religion    an.i    episcopacy,  11 
England. 

"  But  if  you  are  so  completely  a  tenant-at-wiil  at  King's  College, 
that  they  can  dismiss  you  without  making  their  reasons  public,  then 
your  only  plan,  surely,  is  to  forestall  them,  and  throw  up  your  cure 
on  the  ground  of  your  rights  as  an  English  priest,  thereby  again 
preventhii^  scandal,  in  the  true  sense  of  the  verb. 

*'  But  whethersoever  of  these  is  your  plan,  will  it  not  be  expe- 
dient for  one  of  us  at  least,  to  get  up  the  question  historically?  ]l 
seems  to  me  that  no  such  bondage  has  hitherto  been  formally 
demanded  in  the  English  Church.  And  if  we  can  prove  this  point, 
we  prove  everything  with  precedent-worshipping  John  Bull.  The 
whole  matter  for  the  next  seven  years  will  practically  turn  on,  not, 
'are  you  right  or  wrong?'  but  'are  you  legally  and  formally  per- 
mitted or  unpermitted  ? '  and  that  will  depend,  in  a  vague  businesj 
(shame  that  it  should  be  vague  !)  like  this,  on — Were  divines  since 
the  Reformation  allowed  to  have  their  own  opinions  on  this  point.' 
and  yet  to  hold  ecclesiastical  preferment  ?  Indeed,  paltry  as  this 
point  may  seem,  we  must  have  it  formally  proved  or  disproved, 
not  only  for  our  own  safety,  but  for  the  safety  of  the  Established 
Church. 

"  Now  do  you  know  anything  about  this  ?  Do  you  know  men 
who  do?  Or  can  you  get  me  put  in  the  way  of  blinding  out  by 
being  told  what  books  to  read,  and  I  will  work  it  out.  Let  that  be 
my  business.  We  will  settle  hereafter  in  what  form  my  results 
shall  be  brought  into  the  battle.  This  seems  to  me  the  first  indis- 
pensable practical  act — not  of  defence, 'but  of  offence. 

"  For  1  would  not  act  on  the  defensive.  If  you  only  go  to  prove 
that  you  may  hold  what  you  do,  you  will  either  be  smashed  by  the 
same  arguments  as  smashed  the  good  of  Tract  90  ivith  the  evil  of 
it,  or  you  will  be  sorely  tempted  hereafter  dare  viamis  and  say,  '  If 
I  can't  hold  this  here,  I  will  go  where  I  can  hold  it'  (not  that  you 
will  ever  yield  to  that  temptation,  but  that  it  will  come,  and  must 
be  provided  against).  But  if  you  go  steadily  on  the  offensive,  say, 
I  and  you  viiist  hold  this,  and  proclaim  yourself  as  the  chami)ioa 
of  the  honest  and  plain  meaning  of  our  formularies,  and  hurl  back 
the  onus  probaudi  on  the  popular  party,  you  will  frighten  them, 
get  a  hearing  from  the  unorthodox,  and  bring  over  to  your  side 
the  great  mass  who  fear  change,  while  they  love  and  trust  theii 
formularies  enough  to  be  glad  to  have  the  right  interpretation  of 
til  em, 

"  I  was  struck  the  other  day  by  the  pleasure  which  a  sermon  of 
mine  gave  not  only  to  my  clods,  but  to  the  best  of  my  high  church 
gentry,  in  which  sermon  I  had  just  copied  word  for  word  youi 
Essay  on  Eternal  Life  and  Death — of  course  stating  the  thing 
more  coarsely,  and  therefore  more  dangerously,  than  your  wi?doaj 
would  have  let  you  do — and  yet  people  were  delighted. 


Archdeacon  Hare   Consulted.  185 

•'  Now  forgive  nie,  a  thousand  times  I  ask  it,  if  I  have  seeiDed 
to  put  myself  up  as  a  counsellor.  You  know  what  I  feel  for  you. 
But  your  cause  is  mine.  We  swim  in  the  same  boat,  and  stand  or 
UU  henceforth  together.  I  am  the  mouse  helping  the  lion — with 
this  difference,  that  the  mouse  was  outside  the  net  when  she  gniwed 
it,  while  I  am  inside.  For  if  you  are  condemned  for  these 
'  opinions  '  I  shall  and  must  therefore  avow  them." 

EvERSLKY,  0<tober  30. 

"Well,  dearest  master I  shall   not  condole  witn 

you.  You  are  above  that :  but  only  remind  you  of  this  day's 
P.salms,  which  have  been  to  me,  strangely  enough,  the  Psalms  for 
the  day  in  all  great  crises  of  my  life. 

"  Will  you  please  get  the  correspondence  published  as  soon  as 
possible,  and  send  me  down,  if  possible  by  return  of  post,  the 
whole  of  it,  and  also  Jelf's  notice  in  the  Record.  I  promise  you, 
I  will  do  nothing  without  consulting  better  and  wiser  men  than 
myself;  and  I  will  show  you  all  arguments  which  I  may  write. 
But  the  time  is  now  come  for  those  who  love  you  to  show  their 
colors,  and  their  teeth  also.  I  am  too  unhappy  about  you  to  say 
n->uch.  You  must  know  what  I  feel.  I  always  expected  it  ;  but 
yet,  when  it  comes  one  cannot  face  it  a  bit  the  better.  Neverthe- 
less, it  is  but  a  passing  storm  of  dust." 

He  now  consulted  Archdeacon  Hare  about  a  protest :  he  went 
to  Oxford,  and  wrote  to  Cambridge.  Archdeacon  Hare's  reply 
will  show  what  was  proposed,  and  who  were  to  be  taken  into 
counsel  : 

FROM    ARCHDEACON    HARE. 

St.  Leonard's,  November  10,  1853. 
"  My  dear  Mr.  Kingsley, 

"We  know  from  of  old  that  the  Seniores  Patrum  were  a])t  to 
think  the y/z/z/^r^j  incUned  to  act  too  precipitately;  and  it  may 
pel  haps  be  this  drag  of  old  age  that  makes  me  think  the  plan 
sketcht  in  your  last  letter  somewhat  over  hasty.  Time  is  an 
uinmportant  element  in  our  proceedings  :  two  or  three  montlis 
spent  in  the  proper  preparations  will  not  injure,  and  may  greatly 
benefit  our  cause.  If  we  begin  with  getting  a  good  list  of  eminent 
names  to  head  our  protest,  before  we  publish  it,  it  will  be  sure  to 
command  attention,  and  many  will  follow  such  leaders  ;  while,  if 
it  be  circulated  as  the  act  of  a  small  number,  a  cry  will  be  raised 
against  it  as  issuing  from  a  few  latitudinarians,  and  the  priest  and 
the  scribe  will  pass  it  by  on  the  other  side.  I  should,  indeed,  be 
delighted  if  Keble  were  to  espouse  our  cause  :  but  I  reme-nbei 
B"   ne   sonnets   of  his,    «■— 'nty  years   ago,  on  the  blessings  of  the 


1 86  Charles  Kings  ley. 

A-thanasian  Creed,  which  stuck  me  with  terror  and  awe.  Being 
absent  from  home,  I  cannot  ascertain  how  Trench  interprets  tiie 
iast  parable  in  Matthew  xxv.  ;  but  I  would  fain  hope  we  migh^ 
have  him  :  and  he,  as  one  of  the  Professors  immediately  affected 
by  the  recent  decision,  would  rightly  take  the  lead. 

"  Thirlwall  writes  indignantly  of  the  proceedings.  When  our 
project  is  further  advanced,  I  will  write  to  him  about  it :  but  he 
T/ill  have  to  consider  how  far  a  Bishop  may  join  in  such  a  protest. 
Stanley  might  consult  Whately,  who,  I  fancy,  has  already  written 
on  the  subject, 

"  Thompson  and  Sedgwick  would  be  with  us  ;  and  perhaps 
Whewell  also,  if  our  protest  were  judiciously  drawn  up. 

"  In  the  preamble,  we  must  state  the  immediate  ground  foi 
the  step  Ave  take,  and  the  fact,  not  generally  known,  that  out 
church  has  implicitly  sanctioned  the  exercise  of  i^rlvate  judgment 
on  this  point,  by  the  retracting  of  the  42d  Article.  It  seems  to 
me,  too,  that  we  must  say  something  to  remove  the  prima  facie 
objection,  which  will  strike  most  persons,  from  the  Athanasian 
Creed  ;  and  I  think  this  may  be  done  without  appearing  to  dog- 
matize, while  it  will  be  a  comfort  to  numbers  to  have  this  thorn 
drawn  out  of  their  hearts. 

"Stanley  was  in  Cheshire  the  other  day  :  I  know  not  where  he 
is  now. 

"  Yours  most  sincerely, 

"  Julius  C.  Hare. 

"  Since  writing  the  above,  I  have  a  letter  from  Trench,  pro- 
posing to  come  to  Hurstmonceaux  on  Tuesday  next.  It  would  bt 
a  great  delight  to  us,  and  would  much  forward  our  work,  if  you 
could  meet  him  there." 

The  following  letters  to  Mr.  Thomas  Cooper,  Chartist,  who 
wrote  the  "  Purgatory  of  Suicides  "  in  1843-4,  while  imprisoned 
in  Stafford  Gaol  on  a  charge  of  sedition,  though  spreading  over 
several  years,  will  be  more  interesting  if  read  together  without 
regard  to  dates,  The  corresponding  letters  that  called  them  fortu 
are  full  of  power  and  vigor,  and  have  been  kindly  placed  by  Mr. 
Cooper  at  the  disposal  of  the  editor,  but  want  of  space  prevents 
their  publicatioix,  When  Mr,  Kingsley  first  knew  Thomas  Cooper, 
he  was  lecturing  on  Strauss,  in  the  John  Street  Lecture  Rooms,  to 
working  men  ;  and  after  long  struggles  with  his  own  sceptical  diffi- 
culties, as  will  be  seen  by  these  letters,  his  doubts  were  solved,  and 
fie  became  a  lecturer  on  Christianity,  a  work  he  continues  now  at 
the  age  of  seventy.     He  is  a  man  of  vast  reading  and  indor  utable 


Letters  to    l^honias   Cooper.  187 

courage.  His  aulobiography,  published  in  1872,  is  a  rcri  lariiablc 
book  well  worth  reading,  both  for  its  own  sake  and  for  the  pictures 
of  working  class  life  and  thought,  which  it  reveals.* 

EVERSLEY,  November  2,  1853, 

".  ,  .  .  Work  and  family  illness  have  kept  your  kind  lette/ 
unanswered,  with  many  others,  till  this  leisure  morning.  As  to 
your  'Alderman  Ralph,'  I  shall  possess  myself  of  a  copy  when  1 
come  CO  London,  and  als-o  do  myself  the  pleasure  of  calling  upon 
you. 

"  I  am  glad  you  like  '  Hypatia.'  I  wrote  it  with  my  whole 
heart,  trusting  that  I  should  find  at  least  a  few  who  would  read  it 
with  their  whole  hearts,  and  I  have  not  been  disai)pointed."  (Your 
Jew  in  '  Hypatia,'  Thomas  Cooper  had  said,  shows  me  that  you 
understand  me.) 

"Your  friend  is  a  very  noble  fellow.  As  for  converting  either 
you  or  him, — what  1  want  to  do, .  is  to  make  people  believe  in 
the  Incarnation,  as  the  one  solution  of  all  one's  doubts  and  fears 
for  all  heaven  and  earth,  wherefore  I  should  say  boldly,  that,  even 
if  Strauss  were  right,  the  thing  must  either  have  happened  some- 
where else,  or  will  happen  somewhere  some  day,  so  utterly  does 
both  my  reason  and  conscience,  and,  as  I  think,  judging  from 
history,  the  reason  and  conscience  of  the  many  in  a//  ages  and 
climes,  demand  an  Incarnation.  As  for  Strauss,  I  have  read  a  great 
deal  of  him,  and  his  preface  carefully.f  Of  the  latter,  I  must  say 
that  it  is  utterly  illogical,  founded  on  a  gross  petitio  principii  ;  as 
for  the  mass  of  the  book,  I  would  undertake,  by  the  same  falla- 
cious process,  to  disprove  the  existence  of  Strauss  himself,  or  any 
other  phenomenon  in  heaven  or  earth.     But  all  this  is  a  long  story. 

*  Life  of  Thomas  Cooper,  by  himself,  published  by  Hodder  and  Stoughton, 
London. 

I  This  refers  to  a  letter  in  which  Thomas  Cooper  says,  "  My  friend,  a  noble 
young  fellow,  says  you  are  trying  to  convert  him  to  orthodoxy,  and  expresses 
great  admiration  for  you.  I  wish  you  success  with  hiin,  and  I  had  almost  said 
[  wish  you  could  next  succeed  with  me  ,  but  I  think  I  am  likely  to  stick  where 
I  have  stuck  for  some  years — never  lessening,  but  I  think  increasing,  in  my  love 
for  the  truly  divine  Jesus — but  retaining  the  Strauss  view  of  the  Gospel." 
'"Ail  !  that  grim  Strauss,"  he  says  in  a  later  letter,  "how  he  makes  the  iron 
agony  go  through  my  bones  and  marrow,  when  I  am  yearning  to  get  hold  of 
Christ  I  But  you  understand  me  ?  Can  you  help  me  ?  I  wish  I  could  be  near 
you,  so  as  to  have  a  long  talk  with  you  often.  I  wish  ycu  could  show  me  that 
Strauss's  preface  is  illogical,  and  that  it  is  grounded  on  a  petitio  princif  it.  I 
wish  you  could  bring  me  into  a  full  and  hearty  reception  of  this  doctrine  of  fha 
Incaniation.  I  wish  you  could  lift  off  the  dead  weight  from  my  head  &ad 
heart,  that  blasting,  brutifying  thought,  ihat  the  grave  must  be  my  *  end  all.'  * 


1 88  CliarU'i  Kingsley. 

As  long  as  you  do  9  ie  in  Jesus  the  perfect  ideal  of  man,  )ou  art 
in  the  xv^\\.  patJi^  3  ou  are  going  toward  the  light,  whether  or  nol 
you  may  yet  be  allowed  to  see  certain  consequences  which,  as  I 
believe,  logicalUy  follow  from  the  fact  of  His  being  the  ideal 
Poor  *  *  *  *  'g  denial  (for  so  I  am  told)  of  Jesus  being  the  ideal  of  a 
good  man,  is  a  more  serious  evil  far.  And  yet  Jesus  Himself  said 
'That  if  any  one  spoke  a  word  against  *he  Son  of  Man  (i.e.^ 
against  Him  as  the  perfect  man)  it  should  be  forgiven  him ' ;  but 
the  man  who  could  not  be  forgiven  either  in  this  world  or  that  to 
come,  was  the  man  who  spoke  against  the  Holy  Spirit,  i.  e.,  who 
had  lost  his  moral  sense  and  did  not  know  what  was  righteous 
when  he  saw  it — a  sin  into  which  we  parsons  are  as  likely  to  fall  as 
any  men,  much  more  hkely  than  the  publicans  and  sinners.  As 
long  as  your  friend,  or  any  other  man  loves  the  good,  and  does  it, 
and  hates  the  evil  and  tiees  from  it,  my  Catholic  creeds  tell  me 
that  the  Spirit  of  Jesus,  '  the  Word,'  is  teaching  that  man  ;  and 
gives  me  hope  that  either  here  or  hereafter,  if  he  be  faithful  over 
a  few  things,  he  shall  be  taught  much. 

"  You  see,  this  is  quite  a  different  view  from  either  the  Dissent- 
ers or  Evangelicals,  or  even  the  High-Church  parsons.  But  it  is 
the  view  of  those  old  '  Fathers '  whom  they  think  they  honor,  and 
whom  they  will  find  one  day,  in  spite  of  many  errors  and  supersti- 
tions, to  be  far  more  liberal,  humane,  and  philosophical  than  oui 
modern  religionists     .     .     .     ." 

Thomas  Cooper  had  now  re-commenced  lecturing  at  the  Hall 
of  Science  on  Sunday  evenings,  simply  teaching  theism,  for  he  had 
not  advanced  farther  yet  in  positive  conviction. 

"  Immediately  after  I  had  obeyed  conscience,"  he  says  in  his 
Autobiography,  "  and  told  the  people  I  had  been  in  the  habit  of 
teaching,  that  I  had  been  wrong,  I  determined  to  open  my  mind 
fully  to  my  large-hearted  friend,  Charles  Kingsley.  He  showed 
the  fervent  sympathy  of  a  brother.  We  began  a  correspondence 
which  extended  over  more  than  a  year.  I  told  him  every  doubt, 
and  described  every  hope  I  had ;  and  he  counselled,  instructed, 
and  strengthened  me  to  the  end 

"I  told  him  tliat  while  I  diligentl)  read  '  Bridgewater  Treatises,' 
and  all  the  other  books  with  wliich  he  furnished  me,  as  a  means 
of  beginning  to  teach  sceptics  the  truth  from  the  very  foundation, 
that  the  foundations  themselves  seem  to  glide  from  under  my 
feet.  I  had  to  struggle  against  my  own  new  and  tormenting 
doubts  about  God's  existence,  and  feared  I  shoul'  be  at  last  over- 
whelmed with  darkness  and  confusion  of  mind. 

"  No,  no  !  "  said  my  faithful  and  intelligent  friend.  "  You  will 
get  out  of   all  doubt  in  time.      When  you   feel  you  are  in  the 


ytisiice  of  God.  189 

deepest  and  gloomiest  doubt,  i)ray  the  prayer  of  despeiation ; 
cry  out,  '  Lord,  if  Thou  dost  exist,  let  me  know  that  Thou  dost 
exist !  Guide  my  mind  by  a  way  that  I  know  not,  into  'Thy  truth,' 
and  God  will  deliver  you." 

10    THE    SAME. 

EVERSLEY,  September  i6,  1855. 

•'  Poor  *  *  *  *  sent  me  some  time  ago  a  letter  of  yours  which  i 
ought  to  have  answered  before,  in  wiiich  you  express  dissatisfactiori 
with  the  '  soft  indulgence  '  which  I  and  Maurice  attribute  to  (jod. 
I  am  sure  you  mistake  us.  No  men  are  more  ready  to  say  (I  at 
least  from  experience)  that  *  it  is  a  fearful  thing  to  fall  into  the 
hands  of  the  living  God.'  All  we  say  is,  that  God  is  just,  and  re- 
wards every  man  according  to  his  work. 

"  My  belief  is,  that  God  will  punish  (and  has  puni.shed  already 
somewhat)  every  wrong  thing  I  ever  did,  unless  I  repent — that  is, 
change  my  behavior  therein ;  and  that  His  lightest  blow  is  hard 
enough  to  break  bone  and  marrow.  But  as  for  saying  of  any 
human  being  whom  I  ever  saw  on  earth  that  there  is  no  hope  for 
them  ;  that  even  if,  under  the  bitter  smart  of  just  punishmer.t, 
they  opened  their  eyes  to  their  folly,  and  altered  their  minds,  evi.n 
then  God  would  not  forgive  them  ;  as  for  saying  that,  I  will  n  jf 
for  all  the  world  and  the  rulers  thereof.  J  never  saw  a  man  m 
whom  there  was  not  some  good,  and  I  believe  that  God  sees  that 
good  far  more  clearly,  and  loves  it  far  more  deeply,  than  I  can, 
because  He  Himself  put  it  there,  and,  therefore,  it  is  reasonable  to 
believe  that  He  will  educate  and  strengthen  that  good,  and  chas- 
tise and  scourge  the  holder  of  it  till  he  obeys  it,  and  loves  il,  and 
gives  up  himself  to  it ;  and  that  the  said  holder  will  find  such  chas- 
tisement terrible  enough,  if  he  is  unruly  and  stubborn,  I  doubt  not, 
and  so  much  the  better  for  him.  Beyond  this  I  cannot  say  ;  but  J 
like  your  revulsion  into  stern  puritan  vengeance — it  is  a  lunge  too 
far  the  opposite  way,  like  Carlyle's  ;  but  anything  better  than  the 
belief  that  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  was  sent  into  the  world  to  enable 
bad  men  to  be  infinitely  rewarded,  without  doing  anything  worth 
rewarding — anything,  oh  !  God  of  mercy,  as  well  as  justice,  than 
a  creed  which  strengthens  the  heart  of  the  wicked,  by  promisinj^ 
him  life,  and  makes  ***  ****  believe  (as  I  doubt  not  he  does 
believe)  that  though  a  man  is  damned  here,  his  soul  is  saved  here* 
after." 

1S56. 

"Your  letter  this  morning  delighted  me,  for  /  see  that  you  see. 
If  you  are  an  old  hand  at  the  Socratic  method,  you  will  be  saved 
much  trouble.  1  can  quite  understand  young  fellows  kicking  at  it. 
Plato  always  takes  care  to  let  us  see  how  all  but  the  really  earnest 
kicked  at  it,  and  flounced  off  in  a  rage,  having  tlicir  own  notions 


190  Charles  KingsUy. 

torn  to  rags,  and  scattered,  but  nothing  new  put  in  thft  place 
thereof.  It  seems  to  me  (I  speak  really  hiunbly  here;  that  the 
danger  of  the  Socratic  method,  which  issued,  two  or  three  genera- 
tions after  in  making  his  so-called  pupils  the  academics  mere 
destroying  sceptics,  priding  themselves  on  picking  holes  in  every- 
thing positive,  is  this — to  use  it  without  Socrates'  great  Idea,  which 
he  expressed  by  '  all  knowledge  being  memory,'  which  the  later 
Platonists,  both  Greek  and  Jew,  e.  g.,  Philo  and  St.  John,  and 
«ifter  them  the  good  among  the  Roman  stoics  and  our  early 
Quakers  and  German  mystics,  expressed  by  saying  that  God,  or 
Christ,  or  the  Word,  was  more  or  less  in  every  man  the  Light 
which  lightened  him.  Letting  alone  formal  phraseology,  what  I 
mean,  and  what  Socrates  meant,  was  this,  to  confound  people's 
notions  and  theories,  only  to  bring  them  to  look  their  own  reason 
in  I  he  face,  and  to  tell  them  boldly,  you  know  these  things  at  heart 
already,  if  you  will  only  look  at  what  you  know,  and  clear  from 
your  own  spirit  the  mists  which  your  mere  brain  and  'organization 
and  truth,'  has  wrapt  round  them.  Men  may  be  at  first  more 
angry  than  ever  at  this  ;  they  will  think  you  accuse  them  of 
hypocrisy  when  you  tell  them  'you  know  that  I  am  right,  and  you 
wrong:'  but  it  will  do  them  good  at  last.  It  will  bring  them  tn 
the  one  great  truth,  that  they  too  have  a  Teacher,  a  Guide,  an 
Tnspirer,  a  Father  :  that  you  are  not  asserting  for  yourself  any 
new  position,  which  they  have  not  attained,  but  have  at  last  found 
out  the  position  which  has  been  all  along  equally  true  of  them  and 
you.  that  you  are  all  God's  children,  and  that  your  Father's  Love 
is  going  out  to  seek  and  to  save  them  and  you,  by  the  only  possible 
method,  viz.,  teaching  them  that  He  is  their  Father. 

"  I  should  advise  you  to  stick  stoutly  by  old  Palcy.  He  is 
right  at  root,  and  I  should  advise  you,  too,  to  make  your  boast  of 
P)aconian  Induction  being  on  your  side,  and  not  on  theirs  ;  foi 
'  many  a  man  talks  of  Robin  Hood  who  never  shot  in  his  bow,' 
and  the  '  Reasoner '  party,  while  they  prate  about  the  triumphs  ol 
science,  never,  it  seems  to  me,  employ  intentionally  in  a  single 
sentence  the  very  inductive  method  whereby  that  science  h£.i 
triumphed.     But  these  things  perhaps  you  know  as  well  as  I. 

"  For  the  end  of  your  letter.  Be  of  good  cheer.  When  the 
wii  ked  man  turneth  from  his  wickedness  (then,  there  and  then^, 
he  shall  save  his  soul  a/i7'e — as  you  seem  to  be  consciously  doing, 
and  all  his  sin  and  liis  iniquity  shall  not  be  mentioned  unto  him. 
What  your  'measure'  of  guilt  (if  there  can  be  a  measure  of  the 
inconnnensurable  spiritual)  I  know  not.  But  this  I  know,  that  as 
long  as  you  keep  the  sense  of  guilt  alive  in  your  own  mind,  you 
will  remain  justified  in  God's  mind  ;  as  long  as  you  set  your  sins 
before  your  face.  He  will  set  them  behind  His  back.  Dc  you  ask 
how   1   know   that?     I   will  not  quote  'texts,'   though  'iiere  are 


Systematic  Work  HcaltJifiu.  191 

dozei(S.  I  will  not  quote  my  own  spiritual  expcrier.ce,  tlough  1 
could  honestly:  1  will  only  say,  that  such  a  moral  law  is  implied 
in  the  very  idea  of  '  Our  Father  in  heaven.' 

''P.  S. — I  have  ordered  'Glaucus'  to  be  sent  you.  I  wish  you 
would  consider  especially  pp.  69-80,  95-7,  100-103.  I  send  you 
also  Harvey's  sea-side  book,  that  you  may  read  up  the  -Echinus.' 
I  think  a  lecture  simply  on  the  'Echinus'  would  ast  .-nish  weak 
minds  more  utterly  than  anything  I  can  guess  at.  I  could  help 
you  to  all  facts.  As  for  si)ecimens,  I  could  send  you  a  few.  Bui 
do  you  know  Dr.  Carpenter,  at  University  Hall  ?  He  is  a  good 
man,  full  of  desire  to  teach  workmen  wisdom,  and  knows  the 
'  Echini'  better  than  any  man  on  earth.  He  might  help  you  to 
facts  and  specimens  better  than  I.  But  think  it  over.  Can  you 
make  drawings  ?  Again,  have  you  Hugh  Miller's  invaluable 
'  Footprints  of  the  Creation,'  a  corroboration  of  Paley  against  the 
'  Vestiges,'  drawn  principally  from  the  geology  of  his  favorite  Old 
Red  Sandstone  fishes?  You  will  find  it  useful  beyond  any  modern 
book.  Also,  you  must  get  a  sight  of  Owen's  new  collection  of  his 
I  ectures. 

"  My  father  wants  to  know  if  you  have  ever  seen  old  Mendels- 
sohn's (the  musician's  grandfather)  Answer  to  an  Atheist  at  Ham- 
burgh. I  have  heard  that  the  book  is  highly  valuable.  Do  you 
know  'Kant's  Theodicy?"  It  reveals  A  Being;  but  hardly  a 
Father.     .     . 

Through  the  exertions  of  his  friends,  Thomas  Cooper  was  now 
given  copying  work  at  the  Board  of  Health,  of  which  the  Rl. 
Hon.  William  Cowper  was  then  President :  his  hearers  at  the  Hall 
of  Science,  already  made  bitter  by  his  deserting  the  atheist  camp, 
made  the  fact  of  his  doing  government  work  and  taking  govern- 
ment pay  a  fresh  ground  of  opposition  to  his  teaching,  and  Mr. 
Kingsley  writes  : 

Rectory,  Chelsea,  June  14,  1856. 

"I  called  and  asked  for  you  at  the  Board  of  Health,  but  3  ou 
R'ere  away  !  You  must  not  give  up  to  low  spirits — wait  awhile, 
and  all  will  be  right.  Get  into  harness,  become  a  habitue  of  the 
place,  get  every  one's  good  word,  and  in  six  months  you  will  bt 
found  out  to  be  a  '  valuable  man  ; '  and  then,  in  due  time,  you  may 
say  what  you  like — and  rise  to  something  really  worth  having. 

"  It  is,  I  know  it,  a  low  aim  (I  don't  mean  morally)  for  a  man 
wiio  has  had  the  as[)irations  which  you  have  ;  but  may  not  Oui 
Heavenly  Father  just  be  bringing  you  tlirough  this  seemingly  de- 
grading  work,  to  give  you  what  I  should  think  you  ne  rer  had. — 
what  it  cost  me  bitter  sorrow  to  learn — tie  power  o*  working  ip 


IQ2  Charles  Kings  ley. 

harness,  and  so  actually  drawing  something,  and  being  of  real  ViSe, 
Be  sure,  if  you  can  once  learn  that  lesson,  in  addition  to  the  rest 
you  have  learnt,  you  will  rise  to  something  worthy  of  you  yet.  My 
dear  Cooper,  you  are  a  \  ery  clever  man.  But — don't  you  think 
that  the  God  who  made  you  is  as  fully  aware  of  that  fact  as  you  or 
I  ?  And  is  it  not  probable  that  He  is  only  keeping  your  powers 
seemingly  useless,  till  you  have  learned  to  use  them  ?  Now  it  has 
^emed  to  me,  in  watching  you  and  your  books,  and  your  life,  that 
just  what  you  wanted  was  self-control.  I  don't  mean  that  you 
could  not  starve,  die  piece-meal,  for  what  you  thought  right  ;  for 
you  are  a  brave  man,  and  if  you  had  not  been,  you  would  not  have 
been  alive  now.  But  it  did  seem  to  me,  that  what  you  wanted  was 
the  quiet,  stern  cheerfulness,  which  sees  that  things  are  wrong,  and 
sets  to  to  right  them,  but  does  it  trying  to  make  the  best  of  them  all 
the  while,  and  to  see  the  bright  side  ;  and  even  if,  as  often  hap- 
pens, there  be  no  bright  side  to  see,  still  '  possesses  his  soul  in  pa- 
tience,' and  sits  whistling  and  working  till  '  the  pit  be  digged  foi 
the  ungodly.' 

"  Don't  be  angry  with  me  and  turn  round  and  say,  '  You,  sir,  who 
never  knew  what  it  was  to  want  a  meal  in  your  lite,  who  belong 
to  the  successful  class  who  have.  What  do  you  mean  by  preaching 
these  cold  platitudes  to  me  ?'  For,  Thomas  Cooper,  I  have 
known  what  it  was  to  want  things  more  precious  to  you,  as  well  as 
to  me,  than  a  full  stomach  ;  and  I  learnt — or  rather  1  am  learning 
a  little — to  wait  for  them  till  God  sees  good.  And  the  man  who 
wrote  'Alton  Locke'  must  know  a  little  of  what  a  man  Hke  you 
could  feel  to  a  man  like  me,  if  the  devil  entered  into  him.  And 
yet  I  tell  you,  Thomas  Cooper,  that  there  was  a  period  in  my 
life — and  one  not  of  months,  but  for  years,  in  which  I  would  have 
gladly  exchanged  your  circumstantia,  yea,  yourself,  as  it  is  now, 
for  my  circumstantia,  and  myself,  as  they  were  then.  And  yet  I 
had  the  best  of  parents  and  a  home,  if  not  luxurious,  still  as  good 
as  any  man's  need  be.  You  are  a  far  happier  man  now,  i  firmly 
believe,  than  1  was  for  years  of  my  life.  The  dark  cloud  has  past 
with  me  now.  Be  but  brave  and  patient,  and  (I  will  swear  now), 
b}  God,  sir  !  it  will  pass  v;ith  you." 

yune  25,   i8s6, 

"  I  have  had  a  sad  time,  for  a  dear  friend  has  died  suddenly,  oi  ) 
would  have  both  written  again  to  you,  and  called  again  ;  but  I  could 
not  recollect  your  exact  address,  and  could  not  get  it  at  the  Board 
of  Health,  and  meanwhile  this  trouble  came,  and  I  had  to  exer;: 
myself  for  a  poor  dear  man  left  with  a  family  of  young  folk,  and  ut 
terly  broken-hearted.  You  are  in  the  right  way  yet.  I  can  put  you 
in  no  more  right  way.  Your  sense  of  sin  is  not  fanaticism  ;  it  is,  ] 
suppose,  simple  consciousness  of  fact.  As  for  helping  you  to  Christ, 
1  do  not  believe  1  can  one  inch.     I  see  no  hope  but  in  prayer,  in 


K7iowled^e  of  God.  193 

going  to  Him  yourself,  in  saying  :  Lord  if  Then  art  there,  if  Thou 
art  at  all,  if  this  all  be  not  a  lie,  fulfil  Thy  reputed  promises,  and 
give  me  peace  and  a  sense  of  forgiveness,  and  the  feeling  that  bad 
as  I  may  be,  Thou  lovest  me  still,  seeing  all,  understanding  all, 
and  therefore  making  allowances  for  all !  I  have  had  to  do  that 
in  past  days  ;  to  challenge  Him  through  outer  darkness  and  the 
silence  of  night,  till  I  almost  expected  that  He  would  vindicate 
His  own  honor  by  aj^pearing  visibly  as  He  did  to  St.  Paul  and  St. 
John  ;  but  he  answered  in  the  still  small  voice  only  ;  yet  that  was 
enough. 

"  Read  the  book  by  all  means  ;  but  the  book  will  not  reveal 
Him.  He  is  not  in  the  book  ;  He  is  in  the  heaven  which  is  as 
near  you  and  me  as  the  air  we  breathe,  and  out  of  that  He  must 
reveal  Himself; — neither  priests  nor  books  can  conjure  him  up, 
Cooper.  Your  Wesleyan  teachers  taught  you,  perhaps,  to  look  for 
Him  in  the  book,  as  Papists  would  have  in  the  bread  ;  and  \/hen 
you  found  He  was  not  in  the  book,  you  thought  him  nowhere  ;  but 
He  IS  bringing  you  out  of  your  first  mistake  and  idolatry,  ay, 
through  it,  and  through  all  wild  wanderings  since,  to  know  Him 
Himself,  and  speak  face  to  face  with  Him  as  a  man  speaks  with 
his  friend.  Have  patience  with  Him.  Has  He  not  had  patience 
v/ith  you  ?  And  therefore  have  patience  with  all  men  and  things  ; 
and  then  you  will  rise  again  in  His  good  time  the  stouter  for  youi 
l(;ng  battle. 

"As  for  worldly  matters,  there  is  nothing  to  be  done  now,  but 
to  trust  God  to  give  you  the  right  work  in  His  own  good  time. 
He  has,  you  see,  given  you  anchorage-ground  when  you  fancied 
yourself  utterly  adrift.  Oh,  trust  this  earnest  of  His  care,  and 
'  wait  on  Providence.'  Men  may  misuse  that  expression  into 
Micawber's  cant,  but  there  is  an  everlasting  truth  in  it.  In  such  a 
work  as  God  is  doing  with  you.  He  will  have  it  all  His  own  way, 
so  that  you  shall  have  no  chance  of  mistaking  from  whom  the 
blessing  comes. 

"  Write  again  soon.  Your  letters  are  always  pleasant  to  me.  I 
should  have  answered  this  before ;  but  I  have  been  living  for  three 
days  on  a  vault,  and  a  funeral,  and  the  sight  of  utter  woe." 


EVERSLEY,  December  4,  1856. 

"  Your  letter  is  very  cheering  ;  I  wish  I  could  tell  you  as  mucli 
r.bout  probabilities  as  I  can  about  natural  history. 

"  But,  for  the  zoology,  I  will  bring  you  up  not  only  Cuvier,  but 
all  the  books  I  can  think  of.  Have  you  Hiiber  on  the  bee?  It 
is  old,  but  good.  I  will  bring  you  Kirby  and  Spence's  entomology, 
where  you  will  find  wonders  on  bees  and  ants.  Moreover,  I  can 
hel[)  you,  I  think,  with  geological  books.  Have  you  reatl  Hitch- 
cc;:k,  who  is  making  a  noise  now  ?  and  did  you  ever  seo  a   '  Boy's 

13 


194  Charles  Kitigsley. 

Dream  of  Geology'?  But  the  most  important  book  fo:  you  ij 
Sedgwick's  '  Notes  to  his  University  Studies,'  containing  his  refu- 
tation of  th"?  'Vestiges  of  Creation.'  I  come  to  town  the  lotli, 
and  must  have  some  talks  with  you,  for  now  that  we  are  got  upon 
my  ground  of  Natural  History,  I  think  I  could  do  more  to  help 
you  in  one  talk  than  in  three  letters.  A  Lecture  on  Physical 
Geography,  as  showing  God's  providence  and  care  of  man,  might 
be  effective.  Do  you  know  '  Guyot's  Earth  and  Man '  ?  an  admii- 
able  book,  which  I  can  bring.  I  am  going  to  get  you  Agassiz's 
opening  lecture  to  the  British  Association  this  year,  which  will  be 
quite  invaluable  to  you.  Borrow  from  some  one  Orr's  '  Circle  of 
the  Sciences '  :  with  Owen's  '  Tractate  on  Physiology.'  " 


56  Marina,  St.,  Leonard's,  May  c^^  i857- 

"  About  endless  torment.  (Keep  that  ex|iression  distinct  from 
eternal,  which  has  been  mixed  up  with  it,  the  former  being  what 
the  popular  creed  really  holds.)     You  may  say, 

"  I.  Historically,  that, 

"  a.  The  doctrine  occurs  nowhere  in  the  Old  Testament,  or  any 
hint  of  it.  The  expression,  in  the  end  of  Isaiah,  about  the  fire  un- 
quenched,  and  tlie  worm  not  dying,  is  plainly  of  the  dead  corpses 
of  men  upon  the  physical  earth,  in  the  valley  of  Hinnom,  or  Ge- 
henna, where  the  offal  of  Jerusalem  was  burned  perpetually.  En- 
large on  this,  as  it  is  the  passage  which  our  Lord  quotes,  and  by  it 
the  meaning  of  His  words  must  be  primarily  determined. 

"  b.  The  doctrine  of  endless  torment  was,  as  a  historical  fact, 
brought  back  from  Babylon  by  the  Rabbis.  It  was  a  very  ancient 
primary  doctrine  of  the  Magi,  an  appendage  of  their  fire-kingdom 
of  Ahriman,  and  may  be  found  in  the  old  Zends,  long  prior  to 
Christianity. 

"  c.  St.  Paul  accepts  nothing  of  it  as  far  as  we  can  tell,  never 
making  the  least  allusion  to  the  doctrine. 

"  d.  The  Apocalypse  simply  repeats  the  imagery  of  Isaiah,  and 
of  our  Lord  ;  but  asserts,  disthictly,  the  non-endlessnesa  of  torture, 
declaring  that  in  the  consummation,  not  only  death,  but  Hell,  shall 
be  cast  into  the  Lake  of  Fire. 

"  ^.  The  Christian  Church  has  never  really  held  it  cxclusi/ely, 
till  now.  It  remained  quite  an  open  question  till  the  age  of  Jus- 
tinian, 530,  and  significantly  enough,  as  soon  as  200  years  befoie 
that,  endless  torment  tor  the  heathen  became  a  popular  theory,  pur- 
gatory sprang  up  synchronously  by  the  side  of  it,  as  a  relief  tor  the 
conscience  and  reason  of  the  Church. 

'*/.  Since  the  Reformation,  it  has  been  an  ojjen  question  in  the 
English  Church,  and  the  philosophical  Platonists,  of  the  i6th  and 
17th  centuries,  always  considered  it  as  such. 

'*^.  The  Church  of  England,  by  the  deliberate  expunging  of  the 


Endless   Torment.  195 

42ud  Article,  wnich  affirmed  endless  punishment,  has  declared  it 
authoiitativ&ly  to  be  open. 

"  //.  It  is  so,  in  fact.  Neither  Mr.  Maurice,  I,  or  any  others,  who 
have  denied  it,  can  be  dispossessed  or  proceeded  against  legally  in 
any  way  whatsoever. 

"  Exegetically,  you  may  say,  I  think,  a.  That  the  meanings  of 
the  word  aiwv  and  au.r  tos  have  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  it, 
even  if  aiwv  be  derived  hom  a.d  always,  which  I  greatly  doubt.  The 
word  never  is  used  in  Scripture  anywhere  else,  in  the  sense  of  end- 
lessness (vulgarly  called  eternity).  It  always  meant,  both  in  Scrip- 
ture and  out,  a  period  of  time.  Else,  how  could  it  have  a  plural 
- — how  could  you  talk  of  the  a^ons,  and  neons  of  aeons,  as  the  Scrip- 
ture does  ?  Nay,  more,  how  talk  of  ovto%  h  aiwv,  which  the  trans- 
lators with  laudable  inconsistency,  have  translated  '  this  world,'  i.€., 
this  present  state  of  things,  'Age,'  'dispensation,'  or  epoch — 
atcovios,  therefore,  means,  and  must  mean,  belonging  to  an  epoch, 
or  the  epoch,  and  atwvtos  KoAacns  is  the  punishment  allotted  to  that 
epoch.  Always  bear  in  mind,  what  Maurice  insists  on, — and 
what  is  so  plain  to  honest  readers, — that  our  Lord,  and  the 
Apostles,  always  speak  of  being  in  the  end  of  an  age  or  aeon,  not  as 
ushering  in  a  new  one.  Come  to  judge  and  punish  the  old  world, 
and  to  create  a  new  one  out  of  its  ruins,  or  rather  as  the  S.  S.  bet- 
ter expresses  it,  to  burn  up  the  chaff  and  keep  the  wheat,  i.e.,  all 
the  elements  of  food  as  seed  for  the  new  world. 

"  I  think  you  may  say,  that  our  Lord  took  the  popular  doctrine 
because  He  found  it,  and  tried  to  correct  and  purify  it,  and  put  it 
on  a  really  moral  ground.  You  may  quote  the  parable  of  Dives  and 
Lazarus  (which  was  the  emancipation  from  the  Tartarus  theory)  as 
the  one  instance  in  which  our  Lord  professedly  opens  the  secrets 
of  the  next  world,  that  He  there  represents  Dives  as  still  Abraham's 
child,  under  no  despair,  not  cut  otf  from  Abraham's  sympathy,  and 
under  a  direct  moral  training,  of  which  you  see  the  fruit.  He  is 
gradually  weaned  from  the  selfish  desire  of  indulgence  for  himself, 
to  love  and  care  for  his  brethren,  a  divine  step  forward  in  his  life, 
which  of  itself  proves  him  not  to  be  lost.  The  impossibility  of 
La/.arus  getting  to  him,  or  vice  versd,  expresses  plainly  the  great 
truth,  that  each  being  where  he  ought  to  be  at  that  time,  inter- 
change of  place  {i.e.,  of  spiritual  state)  is  impossible.  But  it  says 
nothing  against  Dives  rising  out  of  his  torment,  when  he  has  learnt 
the  lesson  of  it,  and  going  where  he  ought  to  go.  The  conmion 
interpretation  is  merely  arguing  in  a  ci  cle,  assuming  that  there  are 
but  two  states  of  the  dead,  '  Heaven'  and  '  Hell,'  and  then  trying 
at  once  to  interpret  the  parjble  by  the  assumption,  and  to  prove 
the  assumption  from  the  parable.  Next,  you  may  say  that  the 
English  damnation,  like  the  Greek  KaraKpio-ts,  is  perhaps  /cptcris  sim- 
ple, simply  means  condemnadoB,  and  is  (thank  Gou)  retained  in 
that  sense  in  various  of  oir  fornmlaries,  where  I  always  read  it,  e.^^ 


196  Charles  Kijigsley, 

*  eateth  to  himself  damnation,'  with  sincere  pleasure,  as  protests  ir 
favor  of  the  true  and  rational  meaning  of  the  word,  agains*.  the 
modern  and  narrower  meaning. 

"  You  may  say  that  Fire  and  Worms,  whether  physical  or  spirit- 
ual, must  in  all  logical  fairness  be  supposed  to  do  what  fire  and 
worms  do  do,  viz.,  destroy  decayed  and  dead  matter,  and  set  free  its 
elements  to  enter  into  new  organisms;  that,  as  they  are  beneficent 
and  purifying  agents  in  this  life,  they  must  be  supposed  such  in  the 
future  life,  and  that  the  conception  of  fire  as  an  engine  of  torture, 
is  an  unnatural  use  of  that  agent,  and  not  to  be  attributed  to  God 
without  blasphemy,  unless  you  suppose  that  the  suffering  (like  all 
which  He  inflicts)  is  intended  to  teach  man  something  which  he 
cannot  learn  elsewhere. 

"  You  may  say  that  the  catch,  '  All  sin  deserves  infinite  punish- 
ment, because  it  is  against  an  infinite  Being,'  is  a  worthless  amphi- 
boly, using  the  word  infinite  in  two  utterly  different  senses,  and 
being  a  mere  play  on  sound.  That  it  is  directly  contradicted  by 
Scripture,  especially  by  our  Lord's  own  words,  which  declare  that 
every  man  (not  merely  the  wicked)  shall  receive  the  due  reward  of 
his  deeds,  that  he  who,  &c.,  shall  be  beaten  with  few  stripes,  and  so 
forth.  That  the  words  '  He  shall  not  go  out  till  he  has  paid  the  ut- 
termost farthing,  evidently  imply  (unless  spoken  in  cruel  mockery) 
that  he  may  go  out  then,  and  that  it  is  scandalous  for  Protestants 
to  derive  from  thence  the  opposite  doctrine,  while  they  call  the 
Papists  rogues  for  proving  the  perpetual  virginity  of  the  B.  V.  Mary 
from  exactly  the  same  use  of  €ojs. 

"  Finally,  you  may  call  on  them  to  rejoice  that  there  is  a  fire  of 
God  the  Father  whose  name  is  Love,  burning  for  ever  unquench- 
ably,  to  destroy  out  of  every  man's  heart  and  out  of  the  hearts  of 
all  nations,  and  off  the  physical  and  moral  world,  all  which  offends 
and  makes  a  lie.  That  into  that  fire  the  Lord  will  surely  cast  all 
shams,  lies,  hypocrisies,  tyrannies,  pedantries,  false  doctrines,  yea, 
and  the  men  who  love  them  too  well  to  give  them  u]),  that  the 
suioke  of  their  ySacraj'tcryaos  {i.e.,  the  torture  which  makes  men  con- 
fess the  truth,  for  tliat  is  the  real  meaning  of  it  ;  {3acTai'urix6<;  means 
the  ^ouc/i-stone  by  which  gold  was  tested)  may  ascend  perpetually, 
for  a  warning  and  a  beacon  to  all  nations,  as  the  smoke  of  the  tor- 
ment of  French  aristocracies,  and  Bourbon  dynasties,  is  ascending 
up  tt)  Heaven  and  has  been  ever  since  1793.  Oh,  Cooper — Is  it 
not  good  news  that  ///<r/  fire  is  unquenchable ;  that  f/iaf  worm  will 
not  die  ?  They  tried.  7C'e  tried  in  our  ignorance,  to  quench  that 
fire  when  we  put  Louis  XVIH.  on  the  throne.  But  the  fire  burned 
up  him  and  our  chaffy  works.  The  par fi  pretre  tried  to  kill  the 
worm  which  was  gnawing  at  their  hearts,  making  them  dimly  aware 
that  they  were  wrong,  and  liars,  and  that  God  and  His  universe 
were  against  them,  and  that  they  and  their  system  were  rotting  and 
nusi  die.     And  they  put  poor  Poerics  and  Madiais  in  prison,  ano 


Let  leys  to  Thomas   Cooper.  197 

show  all  tlie  signs  of  weak  terror,  suspicion,  sfite  ,  but  tliey  cannot 
kill  God's  worm,  Thomas  Cooper.  You  cannot  L^ok  in  the  face  of 
many  a  v/oiking  continental  priest  without  seeing  that  the  worm  is 
at  his  heart.  You  cannot  watch  their  conduct  without  seeing  that 
it  is  at  the  heart  of  their  system.  God  grant  that  we  here  in  Eng- 
land— we  parsons  (dissenting  and  church)  may  take  warning  by 
them.  The  fire  may  be  kindled  for  us.  The  worm  may  seize  our 
hearts.  To  judge  by  the  temper  of  the  '  Record  '  and  the  '  Morn- 
ing Advertiser,'  it  has  its  fangs  in  some  of  our  hearts  already.  God 
grant  that  in  that  day  we  may  have  courage  to  let  the  fire  and  the 
worm  do  their  work — to  say  to  Christ,  These  too  are  thine,  and 
out  of  thine  infinite  love  they  have  come.  Thou  requirest  truth  in 
the  inward  parts,  and  I  will  thank  Thee  for  any  means,  however 
bitter,  which  thou  usest  to  make  me  true.  I  want  to  be  an  honest 
man,  and  a  right  man  !  And,  oh  joy,  Thou  wantest  me  to  be  so 
also.  Oh  joy,  that  though  I  long  cowardly  to  quench  Thy  fire,  I 
cannot  do  it.  Purge  us,  therefore,  oh  Lord,  though  it  be  with  fire. 
Burn  up  the  chaff  of  vanity  and  self-indulgence,  of  hasty  prejudices, 
second-hand  dogmas, — husks  which  do  not  feed  my  soul,  with 
which  I  cannot  be  content,  of  which  I  feel  ashamed  daily — and  if 
there  be  any  grains  of  wheat  in  me,  any  word  or  thought  or  powei 
of  action  which  may  be  of  use  as  seed  for  my  nation  after  me, 
gather  it,  oh  Lord,  into  Thy  garner. 

"  Yes,  Thomas  Cooper.  Because  I  believe  in  a  God  of  Abso- 
lute and  Unbounded  Love,  therefore  I  believe  in  a  Loving  Anger 
of  His,  which  will  and  must  devour  and  destroy  all  which  is 
decayed,  monstrous,  abortive  in  His  universe,  till  all  enemies  shall 
be  put  under  His  feet,  to  be  pardoned  surely,  if  they  confess  them- 
selves in  the  wrong,  and  open  their  eyes  to  the  truth.  And  God 
shall  be  All  in  All. 

"  Those  last  are  wide  words.  It  is  he  who  limits  them,  not 
I  who  accept  them  in  their  fulness,  who  denies  the  verbal  inspira- 
tion of  Scripture." 

St.  Leonard's,  May  20,  1857. 

"  I  have  been  silent,  not  because  I  have  forgotten.  I  have  been 
thinking  earnestly  on  your  letter,  and  this  is  a  fragment  of  what  I 
think. 

"  Your  anecdotes  of  Romaine  and  Clarke,  &c.,  are  new  to  me, 
but  not  surprising,  and  most  significant.  I  can  understand  well 
how  men,  who  considered  the  business  of  life  to  be  the  delivering 
men  from  a  fancied  Tartarus,  to  save  \\\Q.m.  from  God  in  fact— who 
intended  to  move  them  into  endless  torture,  were  quite  unable  to 
conceive  of  the  Son  as  the  express  image  of  the  Father.  How 
could  He  be,  if  the  Father  intended  to  damn,  and  the  Son  to  save  ? 
Thus  the  Godliead  of  the  Son  became  to  them  a  necessary  part  of 
their  scheme  of  redemption,  only  because  unless  He  were  God, 


198  Charles  Kings  ley. 

His  *  satisfacLion '  and  His  '  merits '  would  not  be  infinite,  and 
the  Trinity  became  a  n^ere  function  of  the  'scheme  of  redemp- 
tion,' that  again  being  a  function  of  the  'fall.' 

"  This  I  have  seen  long,  having  been  brought  up  among  the 
evangelicals  ;  but  I  never  knew  that  their  old  j^rophets  had  stated 
it  so  naively.  But  see  what  follows — what  has  followed  in  Geneva 
and  Germany — what  followed  with  you — when  the  Tartarus  and 
the  doctrine  of  vicarious  satisfaction  became  incredible,  then  the 
Divinity  of  Christ,  becoming  unnecessary,  fell  to  the  ground  like- 
vnse — and  socinianism,  and  at  last  deism,  followed  as  a  matter  of 
course.  Think  this  out  for  yourself.  It  is  historically  as  well  as 
logically  true. 

"  Now  with  me.  As  I  have  told  you,  my  reason  demands  a  co- 
equal and  co-eternal  Son,  in  order  that  He  may  be  an  ideal  and 
absolute  Son  at  all.  Adam  Clarke's  '  eternal  generation  being 
eternal  nonsense,'  is  a  very  rash,  foolish,  ignorant  speech  ;  but 
pardonable  to  a  man  of  Locke's  school,  and  therefore  unable  to 
conceive  of  an  ever-present  and  unceasing  eternity,  but  referring 
all  things  to  the  conditions  of  time — unable  to  conceive  that  an 
eternal  generation  means  an  ever-present  and  unceasing  one,  by 
which  the  Father  saith  at  every  and  all  moments  of  time,  'Thou 
art  my  Son,  this  day  have  I  begotten  thee.'  It  is  this  Lockisii' 
which  infects  all  our  pulpits,  which  makes  even  educated  men  un 
able  to  understand  Maurice. 

"  But  my  heart,  Cooper,  demands  the  Trinity,  as  much  as  my 
reason.  I  want  to  be  sure  that  God  c^res  for  us,  that  God  is  our 
Father,  that  God  has  interfered,  stooi)ed,  sacrificed  Himself  for  us. 
I  do  not  merely  want  to  love  Christ — a  Christ,  some  creation  or 
emanation  of  God's— whose  will  and  character,  for  aught  I  know, 
may  be  difterent  from  God's.  I  want  to  love  and  honor  the  abso- 
lute, abysmal  God  Himself,  and  none  other  will  satisfy  me— and  in 
the  doctrine  of  Christ  being  co-equal  and  co-eternal,  sent  by,  sacri- 
ficed by,  His  Father,  that  he  might  do  His  Father's  will,  1  find  it 
— and  no  puzzling  texts,  like  those  you  quote,  shall  rob  me  of  that 
rest  for  my  heart,  that  Christ  is  the  exact  counterpart  of  Him  in 
whom  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our  being.  The  texts  are  few, 
only  two  after  all ;  on  them  1  wait  for  light,  as  I  do  on  many  more  ; 
meanwhile,  I  say  boldly,  if  the  doctrine  be  not  in  the  Bible,  it 
ought  to  be,  for  the  whole  spiritual  nature  of  man  cries  out  for  it. 
Have  you  read  Maurice's  essay  on  the  Trinity  in  his  theological 
essays  ?  addressed  to  Unitarians  ?    If  not,  you  must  read  it. 

"  About  the  word  Trinity,  I  feel  much  as  you  do.  It  seems  un- 
fortunate that  the  name  of  God  should  be  one  which  expresses  a 
mere  numerical  abstraction,  ar^d  not  a  moral  property.  It  has,  I 
think,  helped  to  make  men  forget  that  God  is  a  Spirit — that  is,  a 
moral  being,  and  that  moral  spiritual,  and  that  morality  (in  the 
absolute)  is  God,  as  St.  John  saith  God  is  love,  and  he  that  dwelleti 


Letters  to  Thomas  Coopey.  199 

in  love  dwelleth  in  God,  and  God  in  him — words  which,  were  they 
not  happily  in  the  Bible,  would  be  now  called  rank  and  rampant 
Pantheism.  But,  Cooper,  I  have  that  faith  in  Christ's  right  govern- 
ment of  the  human  race,  that  I  have  good  hope  that  He  is  keeping 
the  word  Trinity,  only  because  it  has  not  yet  done  its  work ;  when 
it  has,  He  will  inspire  men  with  some  better  one. 

The  following  is  the  last  letter  which  passed  between  the  two 
biends  : 

EvERSLEY,  September  2^,  1 872. 

*  Mv  DEAR  Thomas  Cooper, 

••  I  have  been  wandering  for  nearly  a  fortnight,  the  only  scrap 
of  holiday  I  have  had  for  two  years,  and  only  found  your  book  and 
letter  yesterday.  But  I  have  read  through  your  '  Plain  Pulpit 
Talk '  in  two  evenings,  and  I  am  a  close  and  critical  reader,  and 
with  delight.  That  a  man  of  your  genius  and  learning  should  have 
done  the  thing  well  does  not  surprise  me.  The  delight  to  me  is 
,  the  thing  which  you  have  done. 

"  I  see  the  thorough  right  old  morality — common  to  puritans, 
old  Anglican  Churchmen,  apostles,  and  prophets  ;  that  you  hold 
nght  to  be  infinitely  right  ;  and  wrong  ditto  wrong;  that  you  call  a 
spade  a  spade,  and  talk  to  men  about  the  real  plagues  of  their  own 
heart ;  as  Carlyle  says,  you  '  do  not  rave  against  extinct  Satans. 
while  quite  unaware  of  the  real  man-devouring  Satan  at  your  elbow.' 
My  dear  friend,  go  on  and  do  that,  and  whether  you  call  yourself 
Baptist  or  Buddhist,  I  shall  welcome  you  as  one  who  is  doing  the 
work  of  God,  and  fighting  in  the  battle  of  the  Lord,  who  makes 
war  in  righteousness.  But  more.  You  are  no  Buddhist,  nor  even 
an  Unitarian 

"  I  happen  to  be,  from  reason  and  science  as  well  as  from  Scrip- 
ture and  Catholic  tradition  (I  use  a  word  I  don't  like,  but  you  who 
have  read  know  that  there  is  no  better  one  as  yet),  I  happen  to  be, 
I  say,  an  orthodox  theologian,  and  to  value  orthodoxy  more  the 
more  I  think,  for  its  own  sake.  And  it  was  a  solid  pleasure  to  me 
to  find  you  orthodox,  and  to  find  you  deriving  your  doctrines  con- 
cerning right  and  wrong,  and  the  salvation  of  men,  from  orthodox 
tiieology. — Pp.  128,  131,  is  a  speech  of  which  no  sound  divine, 
either  of  the  Church  of  England  or  of  the  middle  age,  ought  to  be 
asliamed.  .  .  .  But,  my  dear  friend,  whatever  you  do,  don't 
advocate  disestablishing  us.  We  are  the  most  liberal  religious  body 
in  these  realms.  In  our  pale  men  can  meet  who  can  meet  nowhere 
else.  Would  to  God  you  belonged  to  us,  and  we  had  your  powers, 
as  we  might  have  without  your  altering  your  creed,  with  us.  But 
if  we — the  one  remaining  root  of  union. — we  disestablish  and  become 
a  sect  like  the  sects,  then  comoetition,  not  Christ  will  be  God,  and 
we  shall  bite  and  devour  one  another,  till  atheism  and  M.  Couito 


200  Charles  Kingsley. 

are  the  rulers  of  modern  thought  I  am  not  mad,  but  speak  the 
words  of  truth  and  soberness;  and  remember  (I  am  sure  you  will, 
though  orators  at  public  meetings  would  not)  that  my  plea  is  quite 
disinterested.  If  the  Church  of  England  were  disestablished  and 
disendowed  to-morrow,  vested  interests  would  be  respected,  and  1 
and  others  living  on  small  incomes  till  our  deaths.  I  assure  you 
that  I  have  no  family  livings,  or  an  intention  of  putting  my  sons 
into  them.  My  eldest  son — a  splendid  young  fellow — is  roughing 
it  successfully  and  honorably  as  an  engineer  anywhere  between 
Denver,  U.  S.,  and  the  city  of  Mexico.  My  next  and  only  other 
son  may  possibly  go  to  join  him.  I  can  give  no  more  solid  proof 
that,  while  Radical  cockneys  howl  at  me  as  an  aristocrat  and  a 
renegade,  I  am  none ;  but  a  believer  in  the  persons  of  my  owu 
chiltken,  ^hat  a  man's  a  man  for  a'  that." 


CHAPTER  XIIi. 

1854. 
Aged  35. 

Torquay— Seaside  Studien— Lectures  in  Edinburgh— Deutsche  Theologie— Lettet 
from  Baron  Bunsen  — Crimean  War  — Settles  in  North  Devon  — Writes 
"  Wonders  of  tlie  Shore  "  and  '"  Westward  Ho." 

*<  ToRBAY  is  a  place  which  should  be  as  much  endeared  to  the 
naturaUst  as  to  the  patriot  and  to  the  artist.  We  cannot  gaze  on 
its  blue  ring  of  water  and  the  great  limestone  bluffs  which  bound  it 
to  the  north  and  south  without  a  glow  passing  through  our  hearts, 
as  we  remember  the  terrible  and  glorious  pageant  which  passed  by 
it  in  the  bright  days  of  July,  1588,  when  the  Spanish  Armada 
ventured  slowly  past  Berry  Head,  with  Elizabeth's  gallant  pack  of 
Devon  captains  (for  the  London  fleet  had  not  yet  joined),  following 
past  in  its  wake,  and  dashing  into  the  midst  of  the  vast  line,  undis- 
mayed by  size -and  numbers,  while  their  kin  and  friends  stood 
watching  and  praying  on  the  cliffs,  spectators  of  Britain's  Salamis. 
The  white  line  of  houses,  too,  on  the  other  side  of  the  bay,  is 
Brixham,  famed  as  the  landing-place  of  William  of  Orange;  and 
the  stone  on  the  pier-head,  which  marks  his  first  footprints  on 
British  ground,  is  sacred  in  the  eyes  of  all  true  English  Whigs  ;  and 
close  by  stands  the  castle  of  the  settler  of  Newfoundland,  Sir 
Humphrey  Gilbert,  Raleigh's  half-brother,  most  learned  of  all 
Elizabeth's  admirals  in  life,  most  pious  and  heroic  in  death.  And 
as  for  scenery,  though  it  can  boast  of  neither  mountain-peak  nor 
dark  fiord,  and  would  seem  tame  enough  in  the  eyes  of  a  Western 
Scot  or  Irishman,  yet  Torbay  has  a  soft  beauty  of  its  own,  in  the 
rounded  hills  which  slope  into  the  sea,  spotted  with  parks  full  of 
stately  timber  trees,  with  squares  of  emerald  grass  and  rich  red 
fallow  fields,  each  parted  from  the  other  by  the  long  line  of  tall 
elms,  just  flushing  green  in  the  Spring  hedges,  which  run  down  to 
the  very  water's  edge,  their  boughs  unwarped  by  any  blast ;  and 
here  ani  there  apple  orchards,  just  bursting  into  flower  in  the 
Spring  sunshine,  and  narrow  strips  of  water  meadow,  where  tbc 


202  Charles  Kings [ey. 

red  cattle  are  already  kumging  knee-daep  in  richest  grass,  within 
ten  yards  of  the  rocky,  pebble  beach,  which  six  honrs  hence  will 
be  hurling  columns  of  rosy  foam  high  into  the  sunlight,  and 
sprinkling  passengers,  and  cattle,  and  trim  gardens,  which  hardly 
know  what  frost  and  snow  may  be,  but  see  the  flowers  of  Autumn 
meet  the  flowers  of  Spring,  and  the  old  year  linger  smilingly  tr 
twine  a  garland  for  the  new."  * 

In  these  words  Mr.  Kingsley  describes  Torquay,  where  he 
passed  the  winter  and  spring  in  1854,  during  a  leave  of  absence 
granted  him  by  the  Bishop  on  account  of  his  wife's  health,  which 
had  suff"ered  severely  from  the  damp  rectory  at  Eversley. 

At  this  time,  and  for  some  years  to  come,  the  clergy  of  all 
parties  in  the  Church  stood  aloof  from  him  as  a  suspected  person. 
The  attacks  of  the  religious  press,  perhaps  happily  for  him,  had  so 
alarmed  the  clergy  of  Torquay,  Higli  Church  and  Evangelical, 
that  all  pulpit  doors  were  closed  against  the  author  of  "Alton 
Locke,"  "  Yeast,"  and  "  Hypatia,"  and  he  spent  quiet  peaceful 
Sundays  with  his  wife  and  children  for  the  first  time  for  many  years. 
Once  only  he  was  asked  to  preach  in  the  parish  church,  and  once 
at  the  chapel  of  St.  John,  in  a  Lenten  week-day  service,  when  the 
congregation,  a  High  Church  one,  were  surprised  at  his  reverent 
and  orthodox  views  on  the  Holy  Eucharist.  It  was  a  resting  time, 
and  the  temporary  cessation  from  sermon  writing  and  parish  work 
was  very  grateful  to  him,  "  a  combination  of  circumstances  having, 
during  the  last  year,"  he  wrote  to  a  friend,  "  so  utterly  exhausted 
me,  physically  and  intellectually,  that  I  mi'st  lie  very  quiet  for  a 
time,  and  I  look  forward  with  some  dread  even  to  the  research 
necessary  to  make  my  Edinburgh  Lectures  what  they  ought  to  be." 
Once  settled  at  Livermead,  the  father  and  children  spent  happy 
hours  on  the  shore,  bringing  home  treasures  every  afternoon  from 
tlie  rocks  and  sands,  and  from  occasional  dredging  expeditions  in 
Tor  Bay,  to  be  classified  and  arranged  in  the  vivarium,  and  to 
amuse  the  invalid.  A  daily  journal  of  natural  history  was  kept, 
and  hampers  of  sea  beasts,  live  shells,  and  growing  seaweed  sent 
off  to  Mr.  H.  P.  Gosse,  then  living  in  London. 

This  sea-side  life  led  to  a  vohuninous  correspondence,  illustrated 
by  his  own  beautiful  sketches,  the  contents  of  which  were  summed 

*  The  "  Vronders  of  the  She  re,"  p.  15. 


New   Treasures.  203 

np  in  ail  article  in  the  "North  British  Review"  011  "Tlie  Won- 
ders of  the  Shore,"  This  article,  afterwards  developed  into 
*'  Glaucus,"  contained  not  only  sketches  of  natural  history,  but 
some  of  his  deepest  thoughts  on  theology  as  connected  with  the 
Transmutation  Theory  and  "  The  Vestiges  of  Creation." 

At  this  time,  while  treading  in  the  footsteps  of  Colonel  George 
Mo  ilagu,  whose  lynx  eyes  had  espied  them  nearly  in  the  same 
spot  fifty  years  before,  he  found  washed  ashore,  in  a  cave  neai 
Goodrington,  after  a  succession  of  south-easterly  gales,  a  number  of 
Montagu's  Chirodota  {Synapia  digitata)  which  had  not  been  seen 
in  the  interval.  Of  these  he  made  many  drawings,  while,  with 
delight,  he  studied  their  strange  contortions ;  and  he  writes  : 

TO    H.  p.  GOSSE,  ESQ. 

LiVERMEAD,  January  3,  1854. 

"  I  jot  down  what  I  see  of  my  pink  chirodotas,  (?)  in  case  yours 
die.  They  are  quite  distinct  from  scolanthus  ;  their  power  is  one 
of  f(?«traction,  not  of  retraction  :  have  no  retractile  longitudinally- 
lined  proboscis,  and  the  tentacula  from  the  mouth  are  twelve  in 
number,  not  fourteen,  and  are  compound,  not  simple.  Their  form 
is  this  :  carrying  a  boss  or  thumb  at  the  back  of  the  quadri-palmate 
horns,  the  smooth  palm  turned  towards  the  mouth.  These  arms 
are  continually  curving  inward  to  an  invisible  mouth,  generally  in 
alternate  pairs,  thus  : 

"You  will  see  by  my  rough  sketch  what  I  mean.  I  can  discern 
no  sohd  riiatter  passing  into  the  mouth  from  their  strokes.  They 
are  never  spread  out  in  a  ring  as  in  Johnstone's  figure. 

"  One  has  parted  with  his  tail,  in  the  form  of  a  globe  of  half  inch 
diameter,  from  which  hang  many  white  filaments,  two  inches  long. 
Another  (perhaps  the  same)  has  two  similar  filaments  protruding 
from  his  tail,  which  under  a  quarter  inch  power,  are  full  of  white 
globular  granules  in  a  glairy  mucus. — I  can  see  no  more.  All  these 
niaments  are  knotted.  The  red  spots  are  continued  up  the  back 
of  the  arms  to  the  thumb.  The  body  is  covered  with  minute  papil- 
lae (?)  and  irregular  transverse  wrinkles,  along  the  salient  ridges  of 
which  the  red  spots  generally  run.  The  red  spots  become  more 
irregrlar  toward  the  head,  and  delicate  longitudinal  pale  lines  ap- 
pear between  them. 

"  I  have  jtaSt  been  watching  the  dismemberment  of  a  specimen. 
It  first  threw  off,  without  my  seeing,  a  piece  about  an  inch  long, 
with  the  white  filaments  protruding  at  each  end  ;  then  recom- 
menced by  a  constriction  an  inch  from  the  end ;  the  part  beyond 
tlie  constriction  rapidly  swelled  and  contracted  to  half  inch,  and 
iiegan   a  series  of  violent  rot"ations  from   right  to  left,  till  it  hao 


204  Charles  Kings  ley. 

turned  itself  more  than  half  round  on  the  longitudinal  (f.g.  2)  axi& 
This  circular  wrenching  continued  principally  in  the  part  about  to 
separate  (which  was  much  more  liTely  than  the  body  of  the  animal) 
till  the  part  nearest  it  swelled  and  became  transparent,  disclosing 
four  muscular  (?)  bands,  as  in  fig.  3.  A  second  constriction  and 
rotations  then  took  place,  and  I  witnessed  the  separation,  as  in  fig. 
4,  but  no  filaments  escaped.  The  first  parted  bit  remains  very 
lively.  The  parent  animal  was  feeding  busily  with  all  its  hands  the 
whole  time. 

"The  animal  has  during  the  night  broken  itself  into  six  pieces, 
the  filaments  protruding  at  the  point  of  separation  or  anterior  end 
in  each.  The  process  has  hurt  the  water,  making  it  milky  ;  of  the 
Holothuriae,  the  brown  have  contracted  both  tentacula  and  suck- 
ers, the  white  only  the  suckers,  and,  taking  in  a  reef  in  their  tenta- 
cula, have  inflated  their  heads  with  water,  the  mouth  pouting  in  the 
centre,  like  an  auricula. 

"  N.B. — I  have  seen  Cyprea  Europaea  during  the  last  few  days 
suspend  itself  from  the  under-side  of  low-tide  rocks  by  a  glutinous 
thread,  an  inch  and  more  in  length  ;  and  when  in  captivity  float 
on  the  surface  by  means  of  a  similar  thread  attached  to  a  glutinous 
bubble.     Johnstone  does  not  mention  this. 

"All  the  specimens  of  chirodota  have  since  gone  the  same  way, 
and  become  dissolving  views,  plus  an  evil  and  sour  smell." 

In  the  well-stocked  vivarium  at  home  he  could  study  the  ways 
of  the  lovely  little  Eolis  papillosa,  the  bright  lemon-colored  Doris, 
and  the  Cucumaria  Hyndmanii,  with  their  wondrous  gills  and 
feathers — to  common  eyes  mere  sea-slugs, — and  varieties  of  Ser- 
pulae,  with  their  fairy  fringes  only  visible  at  happy  moments  to 
those  who  have  the  patience  to  watch  and  wait  for  the  sight ;  while 
the  more  minute  forms  of  the  exquisite  Campanularia  Syringa  and 
Volubilis,  and  the  Sertularii,  and  that  "  pale  pink  flower  of  stone," 
the  Caryophyllia  Sniithii,  with  numberless  others,  were  examined 
under  the  microscope.  Before  leaving  Torquay  he  made  a  rough 
list  of  about  sixty  species  of  Mollusks,  Annelids,  Crustacea,  and 
Polypes  found  on  the  shore,  nearly  all  new  to  him,  and  revealing  a 
new  world  of  wonders  to  his  wife  and  children. 

To  this  period,  his  distinguished  friend  Professor  Afax  Miiller, 
who  came  to  see  him  at  Livermead,  refers  when  he  speaks  of  hini 
"on  the  Devonshire  coast  watching  the  beauty  and  wisdom  of 
Nature,  reading  her  solemn  lessons,  and  chuckling,  too,  over  hex 
inimitable  fun."  The  "inimitable  fun"  was  enjoyed  in  watching 
the  movements  and  manners  of  the  family  of  the  Crustacea,  eipft 


Lecturing  m  Edinburgh.  205 

cially  the  soldier  crab,  of  which  he  had  always  several  specimens 
in  the  vivarium,  which  were  an  inexhaustible  source  of  merriment 
to  him,  and  which  yet  led  him  at  the  same  moment  to  some  of  the 
deep,  strange  speculations  hinted  at  io  reverently  in  the,  pages  of 
*'  Glaucus." 

But  these  pursuits,  however  enchanting,  did  not  engross  him  to 
the  forgetfulness  of  the  great  social  questions  of  the  day,  and 
early  in  the  year  we  find  him  writing  to  Sir  Arthur  Helps,  about 
Sanitary  matters,  and  urging  the  clergy  to  turn  their  minds  to  the 
subject. 

In  February  he  went  to  Edinburgh  to  deliv'er  four  lectures  on 
the  "Schools  of  Alexandria,"  at  the  Philosophical  Institute.  It 
was  his  first  visit  to  Scotland,  and  he  writes  to  his  wife  : 

Warriston,  Wednesday. 

"  The  lecture  went  off  well.  I  was  dreadfully  nervous,  and 
actually  cried  with  fear  up  in  my  own  room  beforehand ;  but  after, 
praying   I  recovered  myself,  and  got  through  it  very  well,  being 

much  cheered  and  clapped All  the  notabilities  came, 

and  were  introduced  to  me  ;  and  I  had  some  pleasant  talk  with 
Sir  James  Maxwell.  Mr.  Erskine,  of  Linlathen,  is  a  charming  old 
man. 

"  My  second  lecture  went  off  better  than  the  first,  in  spite  of  the 
dehcate  points  on  which  it  touched.  Nothing  can  exceed  the  cor- 
diality of  people." 

Warriston,  February  26. 

"  It  is  at  last  over,  ar.d  I  start  for  England  to-morrow.     The  last 

lecture  was  more  crovded  than  ever Altogether  it 

has  been  (if  you  had  but  been  with  me,  and  alas  !  that  poisons 
everj'-thing)  one  of  the  most  pleasant  and  successful  episodes  in 
my  life.  I  have  not  met  with  a  single  disagreeable — have  been 
heaped  with  kindness.  I  have  got  my  say  said  without  giving 
offence,  and  have  made  friends  which  I  hope  will  last  for  life.  I 
have  seen  the  very  best  society  in  Scotland,  and  I  cannot  be  thank- 
ful enough  to  God  for  having  sent  me  here,  and  carried  me  through. 
To-night  I  dine  with  Sir  *  *  *  *  *  *,  a  perfect  fine  gentleman  of 
the  old  school,  who  was  twenty-five  years  in  parliament,  and  ap- 
proves highly  of  'Alton  Locke'  and  'Yeast;'  as  also  does  his 
wife,  who  told  me  I  had  a  glorious  career  before  me,  and  bade 
God  ppeed  me  in  it."     .... 

Returning  from  Scotland  he  stopped  in  London  to  see  how  Mr 


2o6  Charles  Kingsley. 

Maurice's  affairs  were  going  on,  on  his  way  to  Eversley,  where  h* 
had  to  remain  during  a  change  of  curates. 

"  I  have  just  seen  Archdeacon  Hare,  who  is  looking  better;  bul 
this  business  of  Maurice's  has  fretted  him  horribly.  I>  *  *  is  woik- 
ing,  tooth  and  nail,  for  Maurice  in  Lincoln' s-inn  ;  and  the  working 
men  in  London,  including  many  of  the  old  Chartists  of  1848,  arc 
going  to  present  a  grand  address  to  Maurice  in  St.  Martin's  Hall, 
at  which,  I  believe,  I  am  to  be  a  chairman.  Kiss  the  babes  foi 
me,  and  tell  them  I  long  to  be  with  them  on  Tor  sands. 

"  Did  I  ever  tell  you  of  my  delightful  chat  with  Bunsen  ?  I  have 
promised  him  to  write  a  couple  of  pages  preface  to  Miss  Winkworth's 
translation  of  the  '  Deutsche  Theologie.'  Oh  !  how  you  will  revel 
in  that  book  !...." 

The  anxieties  and  expenses  of  illness  were  very  heavy  just  now, 
but  he  always  met  them  by  a  brave  heart  and  by  cheering  words, 
to  one  who  lamented  the  labor  they  entailed  on  him. 

Eversley,  February. 

" ,     .     .     .     And — these  very  money  difficulties 

Has  it  not  been  fulfilled  in  them,  '  As  thy  day  so  shall  thy  strength 
be  ? '  Have  we  ever  been  in  any  debt  by  our  own  sin  ?  Have 
we  ever  really  wanted  anything  we  needed  ?  Have  we  not  had 
friends,  credit,  windfalls — in  all  things,  with  the  temptation,  a  way 
to  escape  ?  Have  they  not  been  God's  sending?  God's  way  of 
preventing  the  cup  of  bliss  being  over  sweet  (and  I  thank  him 
heartily  it  has  ;/^/been)  ;  and,  consider,  have  they  not  been  blessed 
lessons  ?  But  do  not  think  that  I  am  content  to  endure  them  any 
more  than  the  race  horse,  because  he  loves  running,  is  content  to 
stop  in  the  middle  of  the  course.  To  pay  them,  I  have  thought, 
I  have  written,  I  have  won  for  us  a  name  which,  please  God, 
may  last  among  the  names  of  English  writers.  Would  you  give 
up  the  books  I  have  written  that  we  might  never  have  been  in 
difficulties?  So  out  of  evil  God  brings  good;  or  rather,  out  of 
necessity  He  brings  strength — and,  believe  me,  the  highest  spirit- 
ual training  is  contained  in  the  most  paltry  physical  accidents; 
and  the  meanest  actual  want,  may  be  the  means  of  calling  into 
actual  life  the  possible  but  sleeping  embryo  of  the  very  noblest 
faculties.  This  is  a  great  mystery ;  but  we  are  animals,  in  time 
and  space ;  and  by  time  and  space  and  our  animal  natures,  are  we 
educated.  Tlierefore  let  us  be  only  pitient,  patient ;  and  let  God 
our  Father  teach  His  own  lesson,  His  own  way.  Let  us  try  to 
learn  it  well,  and  learn  it  quickly ;  but  do  not  let  us  fancy  that  He 
will  rmg  the  school-bell,  and  send  us  to  play  before  our  lesson  is 
learnt. 


Bunsen  and  the  Deutsche    Thcologie.        207 

*'  Therefore  '  rejoice  in  your  youth,  ere  the  days  come  when 
thou  shalt  sa}^  I  have  no  pleasure  in  them.'  But  make  to  yourself 
no  ghosts.  And  remember  he  who  says,  *  I  will  be  ihappy  some 
day,'  never  will  be  happy  at  all.  If  we  cannot  be  happy  now 
with  ten  times  the  blessings  which  nine-tenths  of  God's  cieatures 
have,  we  shall  never  be  happy  though  we  lived  a  thousand  years. 
J>et  us  lay  this  solemnly  to  heart,  and  take  no  thought  for  th* 
morrow." 

February  27. 

"The  Guards  march  to-morrow!  How  it  makes  one's  bloo(^ 
boil !  We  send  10,000  picked  men  to  Malta,  en  route  for  Con 
stantinople,  and  the  French  60,000." 

EvERSLEY,  Ash  Wednesday,  March,  1854. 
".  .  .  .  The  'Deutsche  Theologie'  is  come  from  Bunsen  : 
i.e.^  both  Miss  Winkworth's  MSS.  and  Mrs.  Malcolm's  prinred 
translation.  Pray  order  Mrs.  Malcolm's  '  Old  German  Theology,' 
with  a  preface  by  Martin  Luther.  You  never  read  so  noble  a 
book.  The  Reform  Bill  is  shelved  :  excellent  as  it  is,  it  does  not 
much  matter  at  this  minute.  Two  days  after  our  deputation,  that 
bane  of  London,  the  Sewers  Commission,  awoke  in  the  morning, 
and  behold  they  were  all  dead  men  !  Lord  Palmerston,  having 
abolished  them  by  one  sentence  the  night  before,  and  I  have  not 
heard  that  any  one  is  gone  into  mourning.  The  Board  of  Health 
are  now  triumphant  and  omnipotent.  God  grant  that  they  may 
use  their  victory  well,  and  not  spoil  it  by  pedantry  and  idealism  I 
Baines  (capital  man  that  he  is  !)  brings  in  three  clauses,  which  will 
reform  the  whole  poor-law,  and  strike  at  the  root  of  cottage-de- 
struction.    The  squires  intend  to  show  fight." 

In  reference  to  the  evidence  he  gave  on  sanitary  matters  as  one 
o{  a  deputation  to  Lord  Palmerston,  he  says  : 

"  I  had  an  opportunity  of  telling  Lord  Palmerston  a  great  deal 
which  I  trust  may  save  many  lives.  Remember,  it  is  now  a 
question  of  blood-guiltiness — that  is  all.  But  I  am  not  going  to 
London  any  more  about  sanitary  matters.  The  utter  inability 
of  the  Health  of  Towns  Act  to  cleanse  this  or  any  other  neigh- 
boring parish  made  me  consider  what  I  have  done  as  a  parochial 
duty " 

The  "Deutsche  Theologie"  was  translated  by  Miss  Susanna 
VVinkworth  at  Chevalier  Bunsen's  request,  and  Mr.  Kingsley  was 
asked  to  write  a  preface.  He  had  objections,  and  consulted  Mr. 
Mau'ice,  who  answered  him  thus  : 


2o8  Charles  Kmgsley. 

'*  I  think  your  objections  have  great  force,  but  I  do  not  see  that 
they  need  prevent  you  from  stating  your  conviction  that,  as  a 
practical  work  on  Ethics,  the  book  fully  deserves  to  be  translated  and 
read  ;  and  that  the  discovery  of  the  only  correct  MSS.  is  a  reason 
for  introducing  it  to  the  public  at  this  tin>e.  The  religious  people 
have  no  right  to  be  scandalized  by  any  thing  that  Luther  and 
Spenser  sanctioned.  You  can  say  that  you,  being  more  severely 
oithodox  than  they  were,  cannot  swallow  all  the  sei:itences  in  it, 
esteeming  them  to  be  too  mystical  and  not  quite  scriptural,  but 
that  nevertheless  your  judgment  in  the  main  jumps  with  the  great 
Evangelical  authorities,  and  that  you  conceive  they  were  anxious 
to  enlist  such  a  witness  against  the  self-seeking  tendencies  of  the 
religion  of  their  time,  as  you  and  the  translator  are  to  claim  him 
for  the  same  purpose  in  this  day " 

Chevalier  Bunsen  writes  in  the  same  strain  : 

"My  dear  Friend, 

"  Viy  practical  jiroposal  coincides  with  that  of  Maurice.  Keep 
to  the  ethic  point,  and  refer  as  to  the  metaphysical  terminology  to 
Luther.  I  may,  if  required,  say  a  word  in  the  letter  to  Miss  W. 
about  this  point,  although  it  would  be  much  better  for  the  book  and 
its  readers  if  you,  a  clergymen  of  the  Church  of  England,  did  it 
instead.  Now,  having  said  so  much,  let  me  add  a  word  on  the 
great  subject  itself.  When  I  read  your  Preface  to  Hypatia  (which 
you  know  I  think  does  not  justice  to  the  book),  I  thought  I  per- 
ceived you  had  accepted  the  council-creeds  more  historically  than 
penetrated  them  philosophically.  Otherwise  you  could  not  have 
praised  so  much  what  I  must  believe  to  be  only  a  great  logical, 
formal  ingenuity,  but  compared  with  St.  John  and  the  apostolic 
fathers  down  to  Tertullian  and  Origen,  a  perfect  and  thorough 
misunderstanding,  like  that  of  an  anatomist  taking  the  corpse  for 
the  living  body.  The  more  I  study  and  think,  the  stronger  that 
conviction  grows,  for  the  inward  witness  goes  with  the  outward. 
You  will  see  that  my^  whole  new  volume  has  its  centre  in  pointing 
to  facts  which  show  that  I  cannot  say  less  than  what  I  do  say  ; 
that  our  Confessions  of  Faith,  if  taken  as  making  law,  must  be  said 
frankly  to  be  confessions  of  the  blunders  of  those  who  drew  them 
up  :  Hke  the  failure  in  an  equation.  The  X  is  not  made  out,  and 
this  is  confessed. 

"I  have  been  at  this  point  from  1817,  when  the  Theologia  Ger- 
manica  came  into  my  hands  at  Rome.  My  Aphorisms,*  if  you 
read  them  with  reference  to  this,  will  tell  you  more. 

"The  difference  of  God  and  Man,  of  the  Logos,  Christ  and  the 
individual  Christian,  is  that  of  the  Infinite  and  the  Finite,  neithe/ 

*  "  Hippolytus,"  vol.  ii.,  Jirst  edition  {1852). 


Before  the  House  of  Commons.  20Q 

more  nor  less.  This  is  nothing  to  those  for  whom  nothii;^  exists 
which  is  not  in  space  and  time  ;  but  much,  and  enough  for  all  who 
know  that  the  finite — world  and  man — has  no  other  key  to  its  un- 
derstanding except  the  infinite.  No  IVcrden  without  the  Sein  — r<^ 
ovrujg  ov  =  6  ovruig  u)V. 

"  Now  the  Theologia  Germanica  says  nothing  more  in  the  most 
startling  passages.  But  certainly  we  have  learnt  to  say  it  better, 
and  you,  the  English,  ought  to  help  us  to  say  it  still  better.  Foi 
this  reason  I  have  tortured  my  brains  and  your  language,  in  laying 
before  you  the  Aphorisms. 

"  See  whether  we  meet  on  this  divine  road.  Excuse  the  hurried 
and  imperfect  writing.  I  hope  Mrs.  Kingsley  is  continuing  better. 
A  great  anxious  time  of  judgment  is  now  hanging  over  Germany. 
Deus providebit  !     I  correct  two  proof-sheets  every  day. 

"  Ever  yours  faithfully, 

"BUNSEN." 

These  letters  decided  him,  and  he  wrote  to  Miss  Winkworth  ; 

Torquay,  March  25,  1854. 

"  I  am  conquered.  I  have  written  the  preface  this  day,  and 
will  send  the  MSS.  on  Monday.  Pray  translate  that  Unterschied 
der  Personen  (if  you  can)  '  the  distinction  of  the  persons  ; '  and 
then  we  shall  be  at  least,  on  that  point,  a  I'abri  du  diable.  I 
believe  Maurice  is  right.  ,  Pray  show  the  preface  to  him  and  Bun- 
sen,  and  whomsoever  you  like,  that  we  may  get  the  help  of  any 
suggested  improvement." 

After  the  book  had  been  out  some  time  he  writes  again  to  Miss 
Winkworth  : 

"  You  will  be  glad  to  hear,  I  am  sure,  that  your  Theologia  is 
being  valued  by  every  one  to  whom  I  have  shown  it.  Sure  I  am 
that  the  book  will  do  very  great  and  lasting  good." 

\\\  the  spring  he  went  up  to  give  evidence  on  two  subjects  which 
he  had  much  at  heart  before  the  House  of  Commons  on  Sanitary 
Matters  and  on  the  insufficient  pay  of  Parish  Medical  Officers. 
His  experience  of  eleven  years  in  a  parish  had  convinced  him  that 
the  pay  of  the  parish  doctor  was  much  too  low ;  and  he  willingly 
gave  evidence  on  the  subject,  dwelling  particularly  on  the  fact  that 
undei  their  present  salaries  no  medical  men  could  afford,  or  be 
expected,  to  give  two  of  the  most  important  but  most  expensiVf 
medicines — quinine  and  cod-liver  oil. 
14 


2IO  Charles  Kings  ley. 

TO    HIS    WIFE, 

Chelsea  Rectory,  May,  1854. 

" I  am  glad  tJ  have  been  up  here.     1   have  seeB 

very  much  life,  and  learnt  very  much.  It  was  just  what  I  wanted 
aftei  that  Devon  retirement,  1  went  to  meet  Gosse  at  the  Lin- 
DiEan,  and  met  Darwin  (the  Voyage  of  the  Beagle).  Such  a  noble 
face — as  the  average  of  the  Linna^ans,  I  must  say,  had.  *  *  *  * 
is  a  quiet,  meek  man,  and  was  very  anxious  to  know  whether  I  and 
Maurice  really  'denied  the  Atonement,'  on  which  point,  I  think,  I 
sitisfied  him. 

"  We  had  a  regular  microscopic   evening   last    night.     George 

with  his  microscope,  and  Mr,  H with  his — both  magnificent. 

The  things  they  showed  me  were  enough  to  strike  one  dumb.  I 
am  enjoying  the  thought  of  bringing  Gosse' s  book  down  to  you. 
He  has  a  whole  chapter  at  the  end  on  the  things  I  sent  him  most 
kindly  written. 

"  Tell  the  dear  children  I  long  to  see  them,  and  will  be  Ifiome 
Wednesday,  without  fail " 

In  the  spring,  as  his  wife  was  not  allowed  to  return  to  the 
colder  climate  of  North  Hants,  he  settled  with  his  family  at 
Bideford,  where  his  novel  of  "  Westward  Ho  ! "  was  begun, 
whose  opening  pages  describe  his  surroundings  for  the  next  twelve 
months. 

While  there,  a  lady  consulted  him  about  joining  a  sisterhood, 
and  he  replies  : 

Bideford,  July  ^,  1854. 
*  Madam, 

"  Though  I  make  a  rule  of  never  answering  any  letter  from  a 
lady  whom  I  have  not  the  honor  of  knowing,  yet  I  dare  not  refuse 
to  answer  yours.  First,  because  you,  as  it  were,  challenge  me  on 
the  ground  of  my  books  :  and  next,  because  you  tell  me  that  if  I 
cannot  satisfy  you,  you  will  do  that,  to  prevent  which,  above  all 
things,  my  books  are  written,  namely,  flee  from  the  world,  instead 
of  Slaying  in  it  and  trying  to  mend  it. 

"  Be  sure  that  I  can  sympathize  with  you  most  deeply  in  your 
dissatisfaction  with  all  thing.^,  as  they  are.  That  feeling  grows  on 
nie,  as  1  trust  in  God  (strange  to  say)  it  may  grow  on  you,  day  by 
day.  I,  too,  have  had  my  dreams  of  New  Societies,  brotherhoods, 
and  so  forth,  which  w,'re  to  regenerate  the  world.  I,  too,  have  had 
my  admirations  for  Old  Societies  and  brotherhoods  like  those  of 
Loyola  and  Wesle}',  which  intended  to  do  the  same  thing.  But  I 
have  discovered.  Madam,  that  we  can  never  really  see  how  much 
evil  there  is  around  us,  till  we  see  how  much  good  thdre  is  around 


Brothey hoods  and  Societies.  2 1 1 

us,  just  as  it  is  light  which  makes  us,  by  contrast,  mos»  a^vare  of 
darkness.  And  I  have  discovered  also,  that  the  world  is  ahead) 
regenerated  by  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  that  all  efforts  of  oui 
own  to  regenerate  it  are  denials  of  Him  and  of  the  perfect  regen- 
eration which  He  accomplished  when  He  sat  down  on  the  right 
hand  of  God,  having  all  power  given  to  him  in  heaven  and  in 
earth,  that  He  might  rule  the  earth  in  righteousness  for  ever.  And  I 
have  discovered  also,  that  all  societies  and  brotherhoods  which 
may  form,  and  which  ever  have  been  formed,  ?re  denials  of  the 
One  Catholic  Church  of  faitliful  and  righteous  men  (whether  Pro- 
testant or  Roman  Catholic,  matters  not  to  me)  which  He  has  estab- 
lished on  earth,  and  said  that  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it.  And 
when  1  look  back  upon  history,  as  I  have  done  pretty  carefully,  I  find 
that  all  such  attempts  have  been  total  failures,  just  because,  with 
the  purest  and  best  intentions,  they  were  doing  this,  and  thereby 
interfering  with  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ's  way  of  governing  the 
world,  and  trying  to  introduce  some  new  nostrum  and  panacea  of 
their  own,  narrow  and  paltry,  compared  with  His  great  ways  in  the 
deep. 

"  Therefore,  though  Fo.x  (to  take  your  own  example)  was  a  most 
holy  man,  Quakerism  in  general,  as  a  means  of  regenerating  the 
world,  has  been  a  disastrous  failure.  And  so  (I  speak  from  years 
of  intimate  experience)  has  good  John  Wesley's  Methodist  attempt. 
Jsoth  were  trying  to  lay  a  new  foundation  for  human  society,  and 
forgetting  that  one  which  was  already  laid,  which  is  Christ,  who 
surely  has  not  been  managing  the  earth  altogether  wrongly,  Madam, 
for  1800  years,  or  even  before  that  ? 

"  So,  again,  with  that  truly  holy  and  angelic  man,  St.  Vincent  de 
Paul — has  he  succeeded  ?  What  has  become  of  education,  and  of  the 
poor,  in  the  very  land  where  he  labored  ?  God  forbid  that  we  Eng- 
lish should  be  in  such  a  state,  bad  as  we  are  !  The  moment  the  per- 
sonal influence  of  his  virtue  was  withdrawn,  down  tumbled  all  that 
he  had  done.  He  (may  God  bless  him  all  the  same)  had  no  pana- 
cea for  the  world's  ills.  He  was  not  a  husband  or  a  father — how 
could  he  teach  men  to  be  good  husbands  and  fathers  ?  You  point 
to  what  he  and  his  did.  I  know  what  they  did  in  South  America, 
atid  beautiful  it  was  :  but,  alas  !  I  know,  too,  that  they  could  gi'/e 
no  life  to  their  converts  ;  they  could  not  regenerate  soc.ety  among 
the  savages  of  Paraguay  ;  and  the  moment  the  Jesuit's  gentle  des- 
potism was  withdrawn,  down  fell  the  reductions  again  into  savagery, 
having  lost  even  the  one  savage  virtue  of  courage.  The  Jesuits  were 
shut  out,  by  their  vows,  from  political  and  family  life.  How  could 
they  teach  their  pupils  the  virtues  which  belong  to  those  states  ? 
But  all  Europe  knows  w^hat  the  Jesuits  did  in  a  country  where  they 
had  every  chance  ;  where  for  a  century  they  were  the  real  rulers, 
in  court  and  camp,  as  well  as  ir  schools  and  cloisters,  I  mean  ijj 
France.     They  tried  their  very  be?t  (and  tried,  I  am  bound  to  be 


212  Charles  Kingsley. 

lieve,  earnestly  and  with  good  intent)  to  regenerate  France.  And 
they  caused  the  Revohition.  Madam,  the  horrors  of  1793  were  the 
natural  fruit  of  the  teaching  of  the  very  men  who  not  only  would 
have  died  sooner  than  bring  about  these  horrors,  but  died  too  manj 
of  them,  alas  !  by  them.  And  how  was  this?  By  trying  to  set  up 
a  system  of  society  and  morals  of  their  own,  they,  without  knowing 
it,  uprooted  in  the  P>ench  every  element  of  faith  in,  and  reverence 
for,  the  daily  duties  and  relations  of  human  life,  without  knowing 
it — without  meaning  it.  They  would  call  me  a  slanderer  if  the)i 
saw  my  words,  and  would  honestly  think  me  so.  May  God  keep 
you  from  the  same  snare,  of  fancying,  as  all '  Orders,'  Societies, 
and  Sects  do,  that  they  invent  a  better  system  of  society  than  the 
old  one,  wherein  God  created  man  in  His  own  image,  viz.,  of  fathei 
and  son,  husband  and  wife,  brother  and  sister,  master  and  servant, 
king  and  subject.  Madam,  these  are  more  divine  and  godlike 
words  than  all  the  brotherhoods,  '  Societies  of  Friends,'  '  Associa- 
tions of  the  Sacred  Heart,'  or  whatsoever  bonds  good  and  loving 
men  and  women  have  from  time  to  time  invented  to  keep  them- 
selves in  that  sacred  unity  from  which  they  felt  they  were  falling. 
I  can  well  believe  that  you  feel  it  difficult  to  keep  in  it  now.  God 
knows  that  I  do  :  but  never  will  I  (and  I  trust  you  never  will) 
yield  to  that  temptation  which  the  Devil  put  before  our  Lord, 
'  Cast  thyself  down  from  hence,  for  it  is  written  He  shall  give  His 
angels  charge  over  Thee,  &c.'  Madam,  whenever  we  leave  the 
station  where  God  has  placed  us,  be  it  for  never  so  seemingly  self- 
sacrificing  and  chivalrous  and  saintly  an  end,  we  are  temi)iing  the 
Lord  our  God,  we  are  yielding  most  utterly  to  that  very  self-will 
which  we  are  pretending  to  abjure.  As  long  as  you  have  a  parent, 
a  sister,  a  servant,  to  whom  you  can  do  good  in  those  simple  eveiy- 
day  relations  and  duties  of  life,  which  are  most  divine,  because  they 
are  most  human,  so  long  will  the  entering  a  cloister  be  ten^pting 
the  Lord  your  God.  And  so  long,  Madam,  will  it  be  the  doing  all 
in  your  power  to  counteract  every  word  which  I  have  ever  written. 
My  object  has  been  and  is,  and  I  trust  in  God  ever  will  be,  to 
make  people  see  that  they  need  not,  as  St.  Paul  says,  go  up  into 
heaven,  or  go  down  to  the  deep,  to  find  Christ,  because  He,  the 
Word  whom  we  preach,  is  very  near  them,  in  their  hearts  and  on 
their  lips,  if  they  would  but  believe  it ;  and  ready,  not  to  .«et  them 
afloat  on  new  untried  oceans  of  schemes  and  projects,  but  ready 
to  inspire  them  to  do  their  duty  humbly  and  simply  where  He  has 
put  them — and,  believe  me,  Madam,  the  only  way  to  regenerate 
the  world  is  to  do  the  duty  which  lies  nearest  us,  and  not  to  hunt 
after  grand^  far-fetched  ones  for  ourselves.  If  each  drop  of  rain 
chose  where  it  should  fall,  God's  showers  would  not  fall,  as  they  do 
now,  on  the  evil  and  on  the  good  alike,  I  know — I  know  from 
the  experience  of  my  own  heart — how  galling  this  doctrine  is — how^ 
like  Naaman,  one  goes  aw  xy  in  a  rage,  because  the  Prophet  has 


The   CrifJiean    IFar.  213 

not  bid  lis  do  some  great  thing,  but  only  to  go  and  wash  in  th<; 
nearest  brook,  and  be  clean.  But,  Madam,  be  sure  that  he  who  in 
not  fauhful  in  a  little  will  never  be  fit  to  be  ruler  over  much.  He 
who  cannot  rule  his  own  household  will  never  (as  St.  Faut  says) 
rule  the  Church  of  God  ;  and  he  who  cannot  keep  his  temper,  or 
be  st:lf-sacnficing,  cheerful,  tender,  attentive  at  home,  will  never  be 
of  any  rea/  and  permanent  use  to  God's  poor  abroad. 

''  \Vherefore,  Madam,  if,  as  you  say,  you  feel  what  Sr.  Francis  de 
Sales  calls  '  a  dryness  of  soul '  about  good  works  and  charity,  con- 
sider well  within  yourself,  whether  the  simple  reason,  and  (no 
shame  on  you  !)  be  not  only  because  God  does  not  wibh  you  just 
yet  to  labor  among  the  poor  ;  because  He  has  not  yet  finished 
educating  you  for  that  good  work,  and  therefore  will  not  let  you 
handle  tools  before  you  know  how  to  use  them. 

"  Begin  with  small  things.  Madam — you  cannot  enter  the  pres- 
ence of  another  human  being  without  finding  there  more  to  do  than 
you  or  I,  or  any  soul,  will  ever  learn  to  do  perfectly  before  we  die. 
Let  us  be  content  to  do  little,  if  God  sets  us  at  little  tasks.  It  is 
but  pride  and  self-will  which  says,  '  Give  me  something  huge  to 
fight,— and  I  should  enjoy  that — but  why  make  me  sweep  the 
dust  ?  '  Finally,  Madam,  be  sure  of  one  thing,  that  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  is  King  of  this  earth,  and  all  therein;  and  that  if  you  will 
do  faithfully  what  He  has  set  y(5"ii  to  already,  and  thereby  using  the 
order  of  a  Deaconess  well,  gain  to  yourself  a  good  foundation  in 
your  soul's  training,  He  will  give  you  more  to  do  in  His  good  time, 
and  of  His  good  kind. 

"  If  you  are  inclined  to  answer  this  letter,  let  me  ask  you  not  to 
answer  it  for  at  least  thrre  months  to  come.  It  may  be  good  for 
you  to  have  read  it  over  a  second  time. 

"  I  am,  Madam, 

"  Your  obedient  servant, 

"  C.    KiNGSLEY." 

TO   T.    HUGHES,  ESQ. 

BiDEFORD,  December  iS,  1854. 

".  .  .  .  As  to  the  War,  I  am  getting  more  of  a  Govern 
mcnt  man  eve/.y  day.  I  don't  see  how  they  could  have  done  bettei 
in  any  matter,  because  I  don't  see  but  that  /should  have  done  a 
thousand  times  worse  in  their  place,  and  that  is  the  only  fair 
standard. 

"As  for  a  ballad — oh!  my  dear  lad,  there  is  no  use  fiddling 
while  Rome  is  burning.  I  have  nothing  to  sin^  about  tliose  glorious 
fellows,  except  '  God  save  the  Queen  and  them.'  I  tell  you  the 
whole  thing  stuns  me,  so  I  cannot  sit  down  to  make  fiddle  rhyme 
with  diddle  about  it — or  blundered  with  hundred,  like  Alfred  Tenny- 
son.    He  is  no  Tyrtaeus,  though  he  has  a  glimpse  of  what  Tyrta^u? 


2  14  Charles  Kings  ley. 

cinght  to  be.  But  I  have  not  even  that ;  and  am  going  rabbit- 
shooting  to-morrow  instead.  But  every  man  has  his  calling,  and 
my  novel  is  mine,  because  I  am  fit  for  nothing  better.  The  book 
('  Westward  Ho  ! ')  will  be  out  the  middle  or  end  of  January,  if  the 
printers  choose.  It  is  a  sanguinary  book,  but  perhaps  containing 
doctrine  profitaljle  for  these  times.  My  only  pain  is  that  I  have 
been  forced  to  sketch  poor  Paddy  as  a  very  worthless  fellow  then, 
svhile  just  now  he  is  turning  out  a  hero. 

"  I  have  made  the  deliberate  amende  honorable  in  a  note. 

"  I  suppose  "  (referring  to  some  criticism  of  Mr.  H.'s  on  '■  West- 
ward Ho  !')  "you  are  right  as  to  Amyas  and  his  mother  ;  I  will 
see  to  it.  The  letter  in  Purchas  is  to  me  unknown,  but  your  con- 
ception agrees  with  a  picture  my  father  says  he  has  seen  of  Cap- 
tain John  (he  thinks  at  Lord  Anglesey's,  at  Beaudesert),  as  a  prim, 
hard,  terrier-faced  little  fellow  with  a  sharp  chin,  and  a  dogged 
Puritan  eye.  So  perhaps  I  am  wrong  :  but  I  don't  think  that  very 
important,  for  there  must  have  been  sea-dogs  of  my  stamp  in  plenty 
too. 

"  Tummas  !  Have  you  read  the  story  of  Abou  Zennab,  his  horse, 
in  Stanley's  *  Sinai,' p.  67?  What  a  myth!  What  a  poem  old 
Wordsworth  would  have  writ  thereon  !  If  I  didn't  cry  like  a  baby 
over  it.  What  a  brick  of  a  horse  he  must  have  been,  and  what  a 
brick  of  an  old  head-splitter  Abou  Zennab  must  have  been,  to  have 
his  commandments  keeped  unto  this  day  concerning  of  his  horse  ; 
and  no  one  to  know  who  he  was,  nor  when,  nor  how,  nor  nothing, 

I  wonder  if  anybody  '11  keep  our  commandments  after  we  be  gone, 

II  u  ii  less  say,  '  Eat,  eat,  oh  horse  of  Abou  Kingslcy  ! '  " 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

1855- 
Aged  36. 

Dideford — Crimean  War— Death  of  his  friend  Charles  B.achford  ManslielJ  — 
"  Westward  Ho  " — Letters  from  Mr.  Henry  Drummond  and  Rajah  Brooke- 
Drawing  Class  for  Mechanics  at  Bideford — Leaves  Devonshire — Lecture; 
to  Lailies  in  Lon  Ion — Correspondence — Winter  at  Farley  Court — The 
•'  Heroes  "  Written, 

The  Crimean  winter,  bitter  alike  to  the  brave  men  before  Sebas* 
topol  and  to  the  hearts  of  all  Englishmen  and  women  at  home, 
weighed  heavily  on  Charles  Kingsley,  to  whom  the  War  was  like  a 
dreadful  nightmare,  which  haunted  him  day  and  night.  "  I  can 
think  of  nothing  but  the  war,"  he  said,  and  on  the  receipt  of  a 
letter  from  a  friend  which  told  him  of  the  numbers  of  tracts  sent  ou' 
to  the  soldiers  which  they  never  read  and  looked  upon  as  so  much 
waste  paper,  and  urging  him  to  write  something  which  would  touch 
them,  he  sat  down,  wrote  off,  and  despatched  the  same  day  to 
London  a  tract  which  is  probably  known  to  few  in  England — 
"  Brave  Words  to  Brave  Soldiers."  Several  thousand  copies  were 
sent  out  and  distributed  in  the  Crimea,  and  the  stirring  words 
touched  many  a  noble  soul.  Jt  was  published  anonymously  to 
avoid  the  prejudice  which  was  attached  to  the  name  of  its  author 
in  all  sections  of  the  religious  world  and  press  at  that  period. 
To  his  friend  Mr.  Tom  Hughes  he  writes  at  tlhs  moment  : 

"  You  may  have  fancied  me  a  bit  of  a  renegade  and  a  hangci- 
back  of  late. 

"  '  Still  in  our  ashes  live  their  wonted  fires.' 

And  if  I  have  held  back  from  the  Socialist  Movement,  it  has  been 
because  1  have  seen  that  the  world  was  not  going  to  be  set  right  in 
any  such  rose-pink  way,  excellent  as  it  is,  and  that  there  are  heavy 
arrears  of  destruction  to  be  made,  up,  before  construction  can  even 
begin  ;  and  I  wanted  to  see  what  those  arrears  were.  And  J  da 
see  a  little.  At  least  I  see  that  the  old  phoenix  must  burn,  before 
tlie  new  on^  can  rise  out  of  'ts  ashes. 


210  Charles  Kingsley, 

"  Next,  as  to  our  army.  1  quite  agree  with  you  about  that — if 
it  existed  to  agree  about.  But  the  remnant  that  comes  home,  like 
gold  tried  in  the  fire,  may  be  the  seed  of  such  an  army  as  the  world 
never  saw.  Perhaps  we  may  help  it  to  germinate.  But  please 
don't  compare  the  dear  fellows  to  Cromwell's  Ironsides.  There  is 
a  great  deal  of  'personal'  religion  in  the  army.no  doubt:  and 
personal  religion  may  help  men  to  endure,  and  complete  the  bull 
djg  form  oi  courage :  but  the  soldier  wants  more.  He  wants  a 
faith  that  he  is  fighting  on  God's  side;  he  wants  miHtary  and  coi- 
porate  and  national  religion,  and  tliat  is  v  hat  1  fear  he  has  yet  to 
get,  and  what  I  tried  to  give  in  my  tract.  That  is  what  Cromwell's 
Ironsides  had,  and  by  it  they  conquered.  This  is  what  the  Eliza 
bethans  had  up  to  the  Armada,  and  by  it  they  conquered." 

To  Miss  Marsh  he  writes  on  the  death  of  Captain  Hedley  Vicars, 
'^3rd  Regiment,  who  was  shot  in  a  sortie,  March  23,  1855  : 

North  Down  House,  Bideford,  May  9,  1855. 

".  .  .  .  These  things  are  most  bitter,  and  the  only  comfor; 
v/hich  I  can  see  in  them  is,  that  they  are  bringing  us  all  face  to  face 
with  the  realities  of  human  life,  as  it  has  been  in  all  ages,  and  gwing 
us  sterner  and  yet  more  loving,  more  human,  and  more  divine 
thoughts  about  ourselves,  and  our  business  here,  and  the  fate  of  those 
who  are  gone,  and  awakening  us  out  of  the  luxurious,  frivolous,  un 
real  dream  (full  nevertheless  of  harsh  judgments,  and  dealings  forth 
of  damnation),  in  which  we  have  been  living  so  long — to  trust  in  a 
Living  Father  who  is  really  and  practically  governing  this  world 
and  all  worlds,  and  who  willeth  that  none  should  perish — and 
therefore  has  not  forgotten,  or  suddenly  begun  to  hate  or  torment, 
one  single  poor  soul  which  is  past  out  of  this  life  into  some  other, 
on  that  accursed  Crimean  soil.  All  are  in  our  Father's  hands  ;  anc 
as  David  says.  Though  they  go  down  into  hell,  He  is  there.  Oh  ; 
blessed  thought — more  blessed  to  me  at  this  moment  (who  think 
more  of  the  many  than  of  the  few)  than  the  other  thoug^it,  that 
\hough  they  ascend  into  heaven  with  your  poor  lost  hero.  He  is  there 
lis.) " 

During  the  winter,  on  the  2  5di  of  February,  a  sorrow  came,  and 
God  took  from  him,  for  a  time,  one  who  had  been  his  beloved 
friend  for  seventeen  years,  the  ever  welcomed  guest  in  his  home 
since  his  marriage,  and  dear  to  his  wife  and  children  as  1:0  himself. 
His  own  words,    partly  from    a    slight    prefatory    sketch,*    partly 

♦"Brazil,  Buenos  Ayres,  and  Paraguay,"  by  Charles  B.  Mansfield,  Esq., 
with  a  Sketch  of  the  Author's  Life,  by  Rev.  Charles  Kingsley.  (Macniillan, 
1856.) 


Charles  Mansfield.  2 1  7 

from  some  notes  found  among  his  private  papers,  xv'i  \  best  describe 
Charles  Blachford  Mansfield  ;  and  to  those  who  love  to  dwell  on 
fair  pictures  of  God's  works,  this  picture  of  a  human  being,  moulded 
into  His  image,  may  be  acceptable  and  inspiring.  Any  record  of 
Charles  Kingsley  would  be  incomplete  unless  it  included  a  glimpse 
of  one  who  was  so  entwined  with  his  Cambridge  days,  with  the 
rectory  life  at  Everslev,  with  the  winter  in  Devonshire,  and  at  times 
when  the  presence  of  any  other  third  person  would  have  been  an 
interruption. 

"  I  knew  Charles  Mansfield  first  when  he  was  at  Clare  Hall  in 
1838-9,  sometime  in  my  freshman's  winter.  He  was  born  in  the 
year  1819,  at  a  Hampshire  parsonage,  and  in  due  tiine  went  to 
school  at  Winchester,  in  the  old  days  of  that  iron  rule  among  mas- 
ters, and  that  brutal  tyranny  among  the  boys  themselves,  which  are 
now  fast  disappearing  before  the  example  of  influence  of  the  great 
Arnold.  Crushed  at  the  outset,  he  gave  little  evidence  of  talent 
beyond  his  extraordinary  fondness  for  mechanical  science.  But 
the  regime  of  Winchester  told  on  his  mind  in  after  life  for  good  and 
for  evil  ;  first,  by  arousing  in  him  a  stern  horror  of  injustice  (and  in 
that  alone  he  was  stern),  which  showed  itself  when  lie  rose  to  the 
higher  forms,  by  making  him  the  loving  friend  and  protector  of  all 
the  lesser  boys ;  and  next,  by  arousing  in  him  a  doubt  of  all  prece- 
dents, a  chafing  against  all  constituted  authority,  of  which  he  was 
not  cured  till  after  long  and  sad  experience.  What  first  drew  me 
to  him  was  the  combination  of  body  and  mind.  He  was  so  won- 
derfully graceful,  active,  and  daring.  He  was  more  like  an  ante- 
lope than  a  man.  He  had  a  gynmastic  pole  in  his  room  on  which 
he  used  to  do  strange  feats.  There  was  a  seal-skin,  too,  hanging 
in  his  room,  a  mottled  two-year-old  skin,  about  five  feet  long,  of  a 
seal  which  was  shot  by  him  down  on  the  Cornish  coast.  The  seal 
came  up  to  the  boat  side  and  stared  at  him,  and  he  knocked 
it  over.  That  thing  haunted  him  much  in  after  life.  He  deplored 
it  as  all  but  a  sin,  after  he  had  adopted  th  ^  notion  that  it  was 
wrong  to  take  away  animal  life,  for  which  he  used  to  scold  me  in 
his  sweet  charitable  way,  for  my  fishing  and  entomologizing  He 
has  often  told  me  that  the  ghost  of  the  seal  appeared  to  him  in  his 
dreams,  and  stood  by  his  bed,  bleeding,  and  making  him  wretched. 

"  He  was  a  good  shot,  and  captain  of  his  boat  at  Cambridge,  I 
think.  His  powers  of  leaping  standing,  exceeded  almost  any 
man's  I  ever  saw.  i  believe  him  to  have  been  physically  incapable 
of  fear.  And  since  his  opinions  changed,  and  during  the  last  war, 
he  has  said  to  me  that  he  wished  he  was  at  Sebastopol,  handling  a 
rifle,  I  have  been  tempted  to  wish  that  he  had  been  a  soldier, 
f.o  5;plendid  a  one  do  I  think  he  would  have  made. 


2iS  Charles  Kingsley. 

"The  next  thing  which  drev;  riie  to  him  was  his  intellect,  n.3 
merely  that  he  talked  of  the  highest  things,  but  he  did  it  in  sin;h  a 
wonderful  way.  He  cared  for  nothing  but  truth.  He  would  argue 
by  the  hour,  but  never  for  arguing  sake.  None  can  forget  the 
brilliance  of  his  conversation,  the  eloquence  with  which  he  could 
assert,  the  fancy  with  which  he  could  illustrate,  the  earnestness 
with  which  he  could  enforce,  the  sweetness  with  which  he  could 
differ,  the  generosity  with  which  he  could  yield.  Perhaps  the 
secret  of  that  fascination,  which  even  at  Cambridge,  and  still 
iHoie  in  after  life,  he  quite  unconsciously  exercised  over  all  who 
really  knew  him  (and  often,  too,  over  those  who  but  saw  him  for  a 
passing  minute,  or  heard  him  in  a  passing  sentence,  yet  went  away 
saying  that  they  had  never  met  his  like),  was  that  virtue  of  earnest- 
ness. When  I  first  met  him  at  Cambridge  he  was  very  full  of 
Combe's  works,  and  of  'Voiney's  Ruins  of  Empires.'  He  was 
what  would  be  called  a  materialist,  and  used  to  argue  stoutly  on  it 
with  nie,  who  chose  to  be  something  of  a  dualist  or  gnostic.  I 
forget  my  particular  form  of  folly.  ]iut  I  felt  all  through  that  his 
materialism  was  more  spiritual  than  other  men's  s[)iritualism,  be 
cause  he  had  such  an  intense  sense  of  the  truly  spiritual;  of  right 
and  wrong.  He  was  just  waiting  for  the  kingdom  of  Ciod. 
When  the  truth  was  shown  to  him,  he  leapt  up  and  embraced  it. 
There  was  the  most  intense  faith  in  him  from  the  tirst  that  Right 
was  right,  and  wrong  wrong  ;  that  Right  must  conquer  ;  that  there 
was  a  kingdom  of  God  Eternal  in  the  heavens,  an  ideal  righteous 
polity,  to  which  the  world  ought  to  be,  and  some  day  would  be, 
conformed.  That  was  his  central  idea;  I  don't  say  he  saw  it 
clearly  from  the  first ;  1  don't  say  that  be  did  not  lose  sight  of  it  at 
times,  but  I  know  that  he  saw  it,  for  he  was  the  first,  human  being 
that  taught  it  to  me.  Added  to  this  unconquerable  faith  in  good, 
was  an  unconquerable  faith  in  truth.  He  first  taught  me  not  to 
be  afraid  of  truth.  'If  a  thing  is  so,  you  can't  be  the  worse  for 
knowing  it  is  so,'  was  his  motto,  and  well  he  carried  it  out.  This 
was  connected,  it  seems  to  me,  with  his  intense  conscientiousness. 
Of  course  that  faculty  can  be  diseased,  like  any  other,  and  men 
may  conscientiously  do  wrong.  But  what  corrected  it  in  him 
in  after  life,  and  prevented  it  from  becoming  mere  obstinacy 
and  fanaticism,  was  his  wonderful  humility.  That  grew  on  him 
after  his  conversion.  He  had  it  not  at  starting.  At  first  he  was 
charming,  but  wilful  and  proud.  Afterwards  he  was  just  as 
charming,  but  too  apt  to  say  to  any  and  to  every  one,  'Here 
am  I,  send  me  ! '  But  of  his  conscientiousness  1  could  write 
pages.  I  will  not  here  though,  perhaps  never — such  fantastic 
forms  did  it  take.  All  kr.ight-errant  honor  which  I  ever  heard  of. 
that  man  might  have,  perhaps  has,  actually  outdone.  From  the 
time  of  his  leaving  Cambridge  he  devoted  himself  to  those  science* 
which  had  been  a|".  along  his  darling  pursuits.     0:nithol)gy,  geolo- 


Charles  Mansfield.  219 

gy,  mesmerism,  even  old  magij,  were  nis  pastimt <  ;  chemistr}'  and 
dynamics  his  real  work.  He  was  a  great  ornithclogist  from  child 
hood  ;  he  knew  eggs  especially  well  :  one  of  his  plans,  because  he 
did  not  like  shooting  the  birds,  was  to  observe  them  on  the  trees 
with  a  telescope  ;  and  thongh  not  '  mus'.cal '  in  the  common  sense. 
he  knew  the  note  of  every  English  bird.  1  never  knew  hiiii 
wrong.  The  history  of  hli  /i«xl  ten  years  is  fantastic  enough, 
were  it  written,  to  form  material  for  any  romance.  Long  periods 
of  voluntary  penury,  when  (though  a  man  of  fair  worldly  fortune) 
he  would  subsist  on  the  scantiest  fare — a  few  dates  and  some 
brown  bread,  or  a  few  lentils — at  the  cost  of  a  few  pence  a  day, 
bestowiivg  his  savings  on  the  poor;  bitter  private  sorrows,  which 
were  schooling  his  heart  and  temper  into  a  tone  more  purely  an- 
gelic than  I  have  ever  seen  in  man  ;  magnificent  projects,  worked 
out  as  far  as  they  would  go,  not  wildly  and  superficially,  but  on  the 
most  deliberate  and  accurate  grounds  of  science,  then  thrown 
away  in  disappointment,  for  some  fresh  noble  dream  ;  an  intense 
interest  in  the  social  and  political  condition  of  the  poor,  which 
sprang  up  in  him,  to  his  great  moral  benefit,  during  the  last  five 
years  of  his  life.  Here  were  the  elements  of  his  schooling — as 
hard  a  one,  both  voluntary  and  involuntary,  as  ever  human  soul 
went  through.  \\\  all  my  life  I  never  heard  that  man  give  vent  to 
a  low  or  mean  word,  or  evince  a  low  or  mean  sentiment.  Though 
he  had  never,  I  suppose,  seen  much  of  the  '  grand  monde,'  he  was 
the  most  perfectly,  well-bred  man  at  all  points  I  ever  saw  ;  and 
exquisite  judges  have  said  the  same  thing.  His  secret  seemed  very 
simple,  if  one  could  attain  it ;  but  he  attained  it  by  not  trying  to 
attain  it,  for  it  was  merely  never  thinking  about  himself.  He  was 
always  thinking  how  to  please  others  in  the  most  trivial  matters ; 
and  that,  not  to  make  them  think  well  of  him  (which  breeds  only 
afitectation),  but  just  to  make  them  comfortable  :  and  that  was 
why  he  left  a  trail  of  light  wherever  he  went. 

"  It  was  wonderful,  utterly  wonderful  to  me  in  after  life,  know- 
ing all  that  lay  on  his  1  eart,  to  see  the  way  he  flashed  down  over 
(he  glebe  at  Eversley,  with  his  knapsack  at  his  back,  like  a  shining 
star  appearing  vvith  peace  on  earth  and  good-will  to  men,  and 
biinging  an  m voluntary  smile  into  the  faces  of  every  one  who  met 
him— the  compelled  reflection  of  his  own  smile.  And  his  voico 
was  like  the  singing  of  a  bird  in  its  wonderful  cheerfulness,  and 
tenderness,  and  gaiety. 

"At  last,  when  he  was  six  and  thirty  years  of  age,  his  victory 
in  the  battle  of  life  seemed  complete.  His  enormous  and  increas- 
ing labor  seemed  rather  to  have  quickened  and  steadied  than  tired 
his  brain.  The  clouds  which  had  beset  his  path  had  all  but  cleared, 
and  left  sunshine  and  hope  fjr  the  future.  His  spirit  had  become 
purified,  not  only  into  doctrinal  orthodoxy,  but  also  into  a  humble, 
generous,  and  manful  piety,  such  as  I  cannot  hope  ofter  to  behold 


220  Charles  Kings  ley. 

again.  He  had  gathered  round  him  friends,  both  merx  and  womea 
who  looked  on  him  with  a  love  such  as  might  be  inspired  by  a 
being  from  a  higher  world.  He  was  already  recognized  as  one  oi 
the  most  promising  young  chemists  in  England,  for  whose  future 
renown  no  hope  could  be  too  high-pitched  ;  and  a  patent  for  a 
chemical  discovery  which  he  had  obtained,  seemed,  after  years  ol 
delay  and  disappointment,  to  promise  him  what  he  of  all  men 
coveted  least,  renown  and  wealth.  One  day  he  was  at  work  on 
^ome  experiments  connected  with  his  patent.  By  a  mistake  of 
the  lad  who  assisted  him,  the  apparatus  got  out  of  order,  the 
naphtlia  boiled  over,  and  was  already  on  fire.  To  save  the  prem- 
ises from  the  effect  of  an  explosion,  Mr.  Mansfield  caught  up  the 
still  in  his  arms,  and  attempted  to  carry  it  out ;  the  door  was  fast ; 
he  tried  to  hu.rl  it  through  the  window,  but  too  late.  The  still 
dropped  from  his  hands,  half  flayed  with  liquid  fnre.  He  scrambled 
out,  rolled  in  the  snow,  and  so  extinguished  the  flame.  Fearfully 
burnt  and  bruised,  he  had  yet  to  walk  a  mile  to  reach  a  cab,  and 
was  taken  to  Middlesex  Hospital,  where,  after  nine  days  of  agony, 
he  died  like  a  Christian  man. 

"Oh,  fairest  of  souls!  Happy  are  those  who  knew  thee 
in  this  life  !  Happier  those  who  will  know  thee  in  the  life  to 
come  ! 

"  C.  K.' 

They  are  together  now  !  Two  true  and  perfect  knights  of  God, 
perchance  on  some  fresh  noble  quest  ! 

Little  has  been  recovered  of  the  correspondence  of  this  year, 
much  of  which  sprung  out  of  the  publication  of  "Westward  Ho  !  " 
That  book  was  dedicated  to  Rajah  Brooke  and  Bishop  Selwyn,  and 
produced  the  following  letter  from  Mr.  Henry  Drummond,  and  at 
a  later  period,  one  from  the  Rajah  himself: 

Albemarle  Street,  May  13,  1S55. 
"Dear  Sir, — 

"I  have  just  seen  your  noble  dedication  of  'Westward  Ho  ! 
to  Sir  J.  Brooke,  and  have  taken  the  liberty  to  desire  a  copy  ot 
the  shameful  trial  to  which  he  has  been  subjected  to  be  ."ient  you, 
as  I  am  sure  it  will  gratify  you.  I  heard  from  him  last  week  :  ht 
is  quite  y,^  1,  and  all  his  work  prospering.  A  remarkable  thing  is 
about  to  take  place  in  Sarawak.  The  people  finding  themselves 
dealt  with  in  a  manner  so  superior  to  that  in  which  they  are  dealt 
with  by  their  own  rulers,  have  considered  that  the  religion  of  theii 
present  governor  must  be  the  true  religion,  and  accordingly  are 
about  to  apply  en  masse  to  become  meyibers  of  Brooke's  religioa 
In   my  opinion   the  only  means  which   should  be  u>ed    towards 


Rajah  Brooke  and  '' \Ves.tward  Ho!"       22 \ 

heathen   is   the  manifestation  of  mercy,  justice,  and  truth.     Th« 
poor  bishop's  trouble  will  begin  after  he  has  got  his  converts. 
''Begging  pardon  for  this  intrusion  from  a  stranger, 

"  I  am.  Sir, 
*'  With  great  admiration  of  your  writings. 
"Your  obedient  Servant, 

"  Henry  Drummond." 


RAJAH    SIR    JAMES    BROOKE   TO    REV.  CHARLES    KINGSLEY. 

DaWLISH,  March  24,  1859. 

"My  Dear  Sir,— 

"  1  have  long  dela)'ed  to  thank  you  in  person  for  a  verv  vvel 
come  dedication  to  '  Westward  Ho  ! '  but  business,  with  many  cares 
prevented  me. 

"I  cannot,  however,  now  that  I  hear  of  your  kind  interest  in  my 
cause,  and  the  exertions  you  are  making  to  advance  it,  forbear 
from  assuring  you  of  my  sense  of  your  good  opinion,  and  the  good 
it  does  me  mentally.  My  life  is  pretty  well  at  its  dregs,  and  I  shall 
be  glad  indeed  to  pass  the  few  remaining  months  or  years  in  quiet, 
and  free  from  the  anxieties  which  must  beset  the  post  I  have  occu 
pied,  but  which  of  late  years  have  been  increased  tenfold,  owing  to 
the  course  or  rather  no  course  i>ursued  by  the  Government. 

''  It  is  a  sad  but  true  experience,  that  everything  has  succeeded 
with  the  natives,  and  everything  has  failed  with  the  English  in  Bor- 
neo. 1  am  anxious  to  retire,  for  Sarawak  should  not  be  ruled  by 
a  failing  man,  and  I  would  not  cling  to  power  when  unable  to  dis- 
charge its  duties. 

"  In  due  time  I  would  fain  hand  over  my  staff  to  my  successor  if 
)/ermitted ;  but  if  forced  to  return  to  Sarawak,  to  bear  its  anxieties 
and  share  its  trials,  I  shall  know  it  is  a  duty  though  a  trying  one,  and 
shall  not  begrudge  the  exertion  for  the  short  time  I  can  make  it. 

"  Let  me  thank  you,  then,  for  your  kindness,  and  let  me  have 
the  satisfaction  of  knowing  you  before  I  leave  this  country. 

"  Whenever  I  go  again  to  town,  I  will  let  }ou  hear  from  me.  ia 
the  hope  yoa  will  invite  me  to  visit  you. 

"Believe  me,  my  dear  Sir, 

"  Yours  very  sincerer)', 

"J.  Brookk, 

Having  no  parish  work  at  Bideford,  except  during  an  outburst 
of  cholera,  when  he  took  a  district  for  house  to  house  visitrtion, 
and  occasional  duty  at  Northam,  Hartland,  and  Abbotsham,  he 
lectured  on  the  Fine  Arts,  and  got  up  a  drawing-class  for  young 
nien,  of  which  one  of  the  members,  Mr.  Plucknett,  (now  head  of 
a  great  Arm  for  the  design  and  manufacture  of  art  furniture  and 


222  Charles  Kings  ley, 

decoration  in  Warwick  and  Leamington,)  feelingly  speaks  in  a  lei 
ter  to  Mrs.  Kingsley  : 


Warwick,  April,  1876. 

**  I  was  a  youth  in  Bideford  at  the  time  Mr.  Kingsley  came  :j 
reside  there,  when  seeing  the  young  men  of  the  town  hanging 
about  wasting  their  leisure  hours  in  worse  than  wasting,  his  heart 
Vearncd  to  do  them  good.  He  at  first  endeavored  to  establish  a 
C'lOvernment  School  of  Art — this,  however,  failed.  He  then  offered 
to  leach  a  class  drawing — gratuitously.  A  few  of  us  held  a  meet- 
ing and  hired  a  room  in  the  house  of  the  Poet  Postman,  Edward 
Capern,  who,  although  a  married  man,  much  older  than  the  rest  of 
us,  was  a  most  hard-working  pupil.  I  look  back  upon  those  even- 
ings at  Bideford  as  the  pleasantest  part  of  my  life,  and,  with  God's 
blessing,  I  attribute  my  success  iu  hfe  to  the  valuable  instruction  1 
received  from  Mr.  Kingsley  :  his  patience,  perseverance,  and  kind- 
ness won  all  our  hearts,  and  not  one  of  his  class  but  would  have 
given  his  life  for  the  master.  He  used,  as  no  doubt  you  remem- 
ber, to  bring  fresh  flowers  from  his  conservatory  for  us  to  copy  as 
we  became  sufficiently  advanced  to  do  so  ;  and  still  further  on  he 
gave  us  lectures  on  anatomy,  illustrating  the  subject  with  chalk 
drawings  on  a  large  black  board.  His  knowledge  of  geometry, 
])erspective,  and  free-hand  drawing,  was  wonderful;  and  the  rapid 
and  beautiful  manner  in  which  he  drew  excited  both  our  admiration 
and  our  ambition.  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  most  of  the  class 
received  lasting  benefit,  ^nd  have  turned  out  well.  Personally,  I 
may  say,  with  truth,  1  have  cause  to  bless  the  name  of  Mr.  Kings- 
ley  as  long  as  1  live  ;  for  1  left  home  with  little  more  than  the 
knowledge  of  my  business,  and  the  knowledge  of  drawing  learned 
in  the  class.  After  many  years  of  hard  work  1  am  now  at  the  head 
of  a  good  business,  which  1  am  proud  to  say  is  well  known  for  the 
production  of  art  furniture,  &c.  I  often  thought  of  writing  to  Mr. 
Kingsley,  but  diftidence  prevented  me.  The  last  time  I  ever  saw 
him  was  in  front  of  Lord  Elcho's  Cottage,  at  Wimbledon,  at  the 
rime  the  Belgians  first  came  to  the  camp.  I  was  there  represent- 
ing my  corp  from  Bath  as  a  marksman,  and  just  as  I  was  about  to 
speak  to  Mr.  Kingsley,  the  Prince  of  Wales  came  out  on  the  green 
ind  entered  into  conversation  with  him,  and  my  opportunity  was 
lost  for  ever. 

"  Tliough  dead,  he  yet  influences  for  good  thousands  of  hearts 
and  minds  ;  and  he  is  now  reaping  the  reward  of  his  noble  efforts 
while  on  earth  to  add  to  the  sum  of  human  happiness,  and  thus 
leave  the  world  better  than  he  found  it.  I  need  not  speak  of  the 
time  when  the  class  ceased,  and  Mr.  Kingsley  invited  us  to  youi 
house,  to  bid  us  farewell,  and  of  our  tribute  of  love  and  respect  to 
turn " 


Facility  in  Sketching.  223 

rhis  tribute  of  love  was  a  silver  card  case,  which  wis  very  pre- 
cious to  him,  given  at  the  close  of  a  happy  evening,  when  the 
class  came  to  supper  at  North  Down  House. 

The  mention  of  the  "black  board"  will  remind  many  of  his 
masterly  sketches,  in  public  lectures  and  at  his  own  school,  where 
he  liked  always  to  have  a  black  board,  with  a  piece  of  chalk,  to 
illustrate  his  teachings  by  figures,  which  spoke  sometimes  as  elo- 
quently as  his  words.  His  sense  of  form  was  marvellous,  and,  when 
in  doors,  he  was  never  thoroughly  at  ease  without  a  pen  or  pencil 
in  his  hand.  In  conversation  with  his  children  or  guests  his  pencil 
was  out  in  a  moment  to  illustrate  every  subject,  whether  it  was 
natural  history,  geological  strata,  geography,  majDS,  or  the  races  of 
mankind.  And  even  Avhen  vi'riting  his  sermons  his  mind  seemed 
to  find  relief  in  sketching  on  the  blotting-paper  before  him,  or  on 
the  blank  spaces  in  his  sermon-book,  characteristic  heads,  and 
types  of  face,  among  the  different  schools  of  thought,  from  the 
mediaeval  monk  to  the  modern  fanatic.  At  Bristol,  when  he  was 
President  of  the  Educational  Section  at  the  Social  Science  Con- 
gress, as  he  sat  listening  to  the  various  speakers,  pen  in  hand,  for 
the  ostensible  purpose  of  making  notes,  he  covered  the  paper  with 
sketches  suggested  by  the  audience  before  him  or  by  his  own  im- 
agination ;  and  when  the  room  was  cleared,  unknown  to  him,  peo- 
ple would  return  and  beg  to  carry  off  every  scrap  of  paper  he  had 
used,  as  mementos. 

In  the  end  of  May  he  left  Devonshire  and  went  up  to  London, 
before  settling  at  Eversley.  He  there  gave  a  lecture  to  the  Work- 
ing Men's  College,  and  one  of  a  series  to  ladies  interested  in  the 
cause  of  the  laboring  classes.  The  subject  he  took  was.  The  work 
of  ladies  in  the  Country  Parish. 

The  lecture,  valuable  in  itself,  is  doubly  so,  as  the  result  of  the 
first  eleven  years  of  his  labor  among  the  poor,  and  some  extracts 
Me  given  to  show  the  human  and  humane  rules  by  which  he  worked 
hi:  parish. 

"  I  keep  to  my  own  key-note,"  he  says — "  I  say.  Visit  whom, 
when,  and  where  you  will ;  but  let  yoiir  visits  be  those  of  7i>omen  to 
women.  Consider  to  whom  you  go — to  poor  souls  whose  life,  com- 
pared with  yours,  is  one  long  malaise  of  body,  and  soul,  and  spirit 
— and  do  as  you  would  be  done  by  ;  instead  of  reproving  andfault- 
finding,  encourage.     In  God's  r.ame,  encourage.     They  scramble 


2  24  Charles  Kings  ley. 

through  hfc's  rocks,  bogs,  and  thorn-brakes,  clumsily  enough,  and 
have  many  a  fall,  poor  things  !  But  why,  in  the  name  of  a  God  of 
love  and  justice,  is  the  lady,  rolling  along  the  smooth  turnpike  road 
in  her  comfortable  carriage,  to  be  calling  out  all  day  long  to  the 
poor  soul  who  drags  on  beside  her,  over  hedge  and  ditch,  moss  and 
moor,  barefooted  and  weary  hearted,  with  half  a  dozen  children  on 
her  back — 'You  ought  not  to  have  fallen  here;  and  it  was  vei_> 
cowardly  to  lie  down  there  ;  and  it  was  your  duty  as  a  mother,  to 
have  hel])ed  that  cliild  through  the  puddle  ;  while  as  for  sleeping 
under  that  bush,  it  is  most  imprudent  and  inadmissible?'  ^Vhy 
not  encourage  her,  praise  her,  cheer  her  on  her  weary  way  by  lov- 
ing words,  and  keep  your  reproofs  for  )'Ourself — even  your  advice  ; 
for  slie  does  get  on  her  way  after  all,  where  you  could  not  travel  a 
step  forward  ;  and  she  knows  what  she  is  about  perhaps  better  than 
you  do,  and  what  she  has  to  endure,  and  what  God  thinks  of  her 
life-journey.  The  heart  knoweth  its  own  bitterness,  and  a  stranger 
intermeddleth  not  with  its  joy.  But  do  not  you  be  a  stranger  to 
her.  Be  a  sister  to  her.  I  do  not  ask  you  to  take  her  up  in  your 
carriage.  You  cannot  ;  perhaps  it  is  good  for  her  that  you  cannot. 
.  .  .  All  I  ask  is,  do  to  the  poor  soul  as  you  would  have  her 
do  to  you  in  her  place.  Do  not  interrupt  and  vex  her  (for  she  is 
busy  enough  already)  with  remedies  which  she  does  not  understand, 
for  troubles  which  you  do  not  understand.  But  speak  comfortably 
to  her,  and  say,  '  I  cannot  feel  with  you,  but  I  do  feel/(?r  you  :  I 
should  enjoy  helping  you — but  I  do  not  know  how — tell  me.  Tell 
me  where  the  yoke  galls  ;  tell  me  why  that  forehead  is  grown  old 
before  its  time  :  I  may  be  able  to  ease  the  burden,  and  put  fresh 
light  into  the  eyes  ;  and  if  not,  still  tell  me,  simply  because  I  am  a 
woman,  and  know  the  relief  of  pouring  out  my  own  soul  into  loving 
ears,  even  though  in  the  depths  of  despair.'  Yes,  paradoxical  as 
it  may  seem,  I  am  convinced  that  the  only  way  to  help  these  poor 
women  humanly  and  really,  is  to  begin  by  confessing  to  them  that 
you  do  not  know  how  to  help  them  ;  to  humble  yourself  to  '.hem, 
and  to  ask  their  counsel  for  the  good  of  themselves  and  of  their 
neighbors,  instead  of  coming  proudly  to  them,  with  nostrums,  ready 
compounded,  as  if  a  doctor  should  be  so  confident  in  his  own  know- 
ledge of  books  and  medicine  as  to  give  physic  before  asking  the 
[;atient's  symptoms. 

3|C  l|C  *  ^  %  *  <)< 

"  I  entreat  you  to  bear  in  mind  (for  witliout  this  all  visiting  of  the 
poor  will  be  utterly  void  and  useless)  that  you  must  regulate  your 
conduct  to  them  and  in  their  houses,  even  to  the  most  minute  par- 
ticulars, by  the  very  same  rules  which  apply  to  persons  of  your  c  vn 
class.  .  .  .  Piety,  earnestness,  aftectionateness,  eloquence- 
all  may  be  nullified  and  stultified  by  simply  keeping  a  poor  woman 
standing  in  her  own  cottage  while  you  sit,  on  enterirg  her  housCj 
even  at  her  own  request,  while  she  is  at  meals.     Sht  may  decline 


Lecture  to  Ladies.  225 

to  sit ;  she  may  beg  you  to  come  in  :  all  the  more  rear.on  for  re* 
fusing  utterly  to  obey  her,  because  it  shows  that  that  very  inward 
gnlf  between  you  and  her  still  exists  in  her  mind,  which  it  is  the 
object  of  your  visit  to  bridge  over.  If  you  know  her  to  be  in 
trouble,  touch  on  that  trouble  as  you  would  with  a  lady.  Woman's 
heart  is  alike  in  all  ranks,  and  the  deepest  sorrow  is  the  one  of 
which  she  speaks  the  last  and  least.  We  should  not  like  any  one 
— no,  not  an  angel  from  heaven,  to  come  into  our  houses  without 
knocking  at  the  door,  to  say,  '  I  hear  you  are  very  ill  off — I  will 
lend  you  a  hundred  pounds.  I  think  you  are  very  careless  of 
money,  I  will  take  your  accounts  into  my  own  hands.'  And  .jtill 
less  again,  '  Your  son  is  a  very  bad,  profligate,  disgraceful  fellow, 
who  is  not  fit  to  be  mentioned  ;  I  intend  to  take  him  out  of  your 
hands  and  reform  him  myself.' 

"  Neither  do  the  poor  like  such  unceremonious  mercy,  such  un- 
tender  tenderness,  benevolence  at  horse-play,  mistaking  kicks  for 
caresses.  They  do  not  like  it,  they  will  not  respond  to  it,  save  in 
parishes  which  have  been  demoralized  by  officious  and  indiscrimi- 
nate benevolence,  and  where  the  last  remaining  virtues  of  the 
poor,  savage  self-hel]3  and  independence,  have  been  exchanged  for 
organized  begging  and  hypocrisy. 

"  Approach,  then,  these  poor  women  as  sisters — learn  lovingly 
and  patiently  (aye,  and  reverently,  for  there  is  that  in  every  human 
being  which  deserves  reverence,  and  must  be  reverenced  if  we 
wish  to  understand  it)  ;  learn,  I  say,  to  understand  their  troubles, 
and  by  that  time  they  will  have  learnt  to  understand  your  reme- 
dies. For  you  have  remedies.  I  do  not  undervalue  your  position. 
No  man  on  earth  is  less  inclined  to  undervalue  the  real  power  of 
wealth,  rank,  accomplishments,  manners — even  physical  beauij. 
All  are  talents  from  God,  and  I  give  God  thanks  when  I  see  them 
possessed  by  any  human  being ;  for  I  know  that  they  too  can  be 
used  in  His  service,  and  brought  to  bear  on  the  true  emancipation 
of  woman — her  emancipation  not  from  man  (as  some  foolish  per- 
sons fancy),  but  from  the  devil,  '  the  slanderer  and  divider,'  who 
divides  her  from  man,  and  makes  her  live  a  life-long  tragedy, 
which  goes  on  in  more  cottages  than  palaces — a  vie  a  part,  a  vie 
inccmprise — a  life  made  up  half  of  ill-usage,  half  of  unnecessary 
self-willed  martyrdom,  instead  of  being,  as  God  intended  half  o( 
the  iiuman  universe,  a  helpmeet  for  man,  and  the  one  bright  spot 
which  makes  this  world  endurable.  Towards  making  her  that, 
and  so  realizing  the  primeval  mission  by  every  cottage  hearth, 
each  of  you  can  do  something  ;  for  each  of  you  have  some  talent, 
power,  knowledge,  attraction  between  soul  and  soul,  which  the 
cottager's  wife  has  not,  and  by  which  you  may  draw  her  (o  you, 
by  human  bonds  and  the  cords  of  love  ;  bi>t  she  must  be  drawn  by 
thera  alone,  or  your  work  is  nothing,  and  though  you   give  tJ  i 

15 


226  Charles   Kingsley. 

treasures  of  Iiid,  they  are  valueless  equally  to  ne:  a.!il  to  Christ  j 
for  they  are  not  given  in  His  name,  which  is  that  boundless  tender- 
ness, consideration,  patience,  self-sacrifice,  by  which  even  the  cu^j 
of  cold  water  is  a  precious  offering — as  God  grant  your  laboi 
may  be  !  " 

Again,  as  to  teaching  boys,  he  adds  : 

**  There  is  one  thing  in  school  work  which  I  wish  to  i^ress  on 
you.  And  that  is,  tliat  you  should  not  confine  your  work  to  the 
girls  ;  but  bestow  it  as  freely  on  those  who  need  it  more,  and  who 
(paradoxical  as  it  may  be)  will  respond  to  it  more  deeply  and 
freely — the  boys.  I  am  not  going  to  enter  into  the  reason  why. 
I  only  entreat  you  to  believe  me,  that  by  helping  to  educate  the 
boys,  or  even  by  taking  a  class,  as  I  have  seen  done  with  admira- 
ble effect,  of  grown-up  lads,  you  may  influence  for  ever,  not  only 
the  happiness  of  your  pupils,  but  of  the  girls  whom  they  will  here- 
after marry.  It  will  be  a  boon  to  your  own  sex,  as  well  as  to  ours, 
to  teach  them  courtesy,  self-restraint,  reverence  for  physical  weak- 
ness, admiration  of  tenderness  and  gentleness,  and  it  is  one  which 
only  a  lady  can  bestow.  Only  by  being  accustomed  in  youth  to 
converse  with  ladies  will  the  boy  learn  to  treat  hereafter  his  sweet- 
heart or  his  wife  like  a  gentleman.  There  is  a  latent  chivalry, 
doubt  it  not,  in  the  heart  of  every  untutored  clod  ;  if  it  dies  out  in 
him,  as  it  too  often  does,  it  were  better  for  him  I  often  think 
that  he  had  never  been  born  ;  but  the  only  talisman  which  will 
keep  it  alive,  much  more  develop  it  into  its  fulness,  is  fiiendly  and 
revering  intercourse  with  women  of  higher  rank  than  himself, 
between  whom  and  him  there  is  a  great  and  yet  blessed  gull 
fixed." 


One  secret  of  his  own  influence  was  this  loving,  human  teach- 
ing. In  writing  at  this  time  to  an  unknown  correspondent,  who 
consulted  him  about  his  ragged-school  work,  in  which  he  was  just 
then  greatly  discouraged,  he  says  : 

'*  As  for  the  ragged  school,  I  would  say,  though  they  curse,  yet 
bless  thou — teach  there  all  the  more  ;  tell  these  lads  and  men  that 
they  have  a  Father  in  heaven — show  that  you  believe  it,  by  youi 
looks,  your  manner,  and  common  geniality,  and  brotherly  kind* 
ness,  and  general  hopefulness  of  tone  ;  and  let  them  draw  theii 
own  conclusions.  Gcid  their  Father  will  take  good  caie  thaJ  the 
good  seed  shall  grow. ' 

During  a  few  days'  absence  l.e  writes  to  his  wife  r 


Suffering   Working  out  Perfection.         227 

EVERSLEY,  July  16,    1S55. 

•«....  After  all,  the  problem  of  life  is  not  a  difficult  one 
for  it  solves  itself  so  very  soon  at  best — by  death.  Do  what  is  righl 
the  best  way  you  can,  and  wait  to  the  end  to  kriow.  Only  we 
priests  confuse  it  with  our  formulns,  and  bind  heavy  burdens.  How 
many  have  I  bound  in  my  time,  God  forgive  me  !  But  for  that, 
too,  I  shall  receive  my  punishment,  which  is  to  me  the  most  com- 
forting  of  thoughts 

"  Y^s — 

'  'Tis  life,  wliereof  our  nerves  are  scant, 
Oh  life,  not  death  for  which  we  pant, 
Mare  life,  and  fuller,  that  I  want.' 

Voii  are  right — that  longing  to  get  rid  of  walls  and  roofs  and  all  the 
chrysalis  case  of  humanity  is  the  earnest  of  a  higher,  richer  state  of 
existence.  That  instinct  which  the  very  child  has  to  get  rid  of 
clothes,  and  cuddle  to  flesh — what  is  it  but  the  longing  for  fuller 
:uiion  with  those  it  loves  ?  But  see  again  (I  always  take  the  bright 
side), — If  in  spite  of  wars  and  fevers,  and  accidents,  and  the  strokes 
of  chance,  this  world  be  as  rich  and  fair  and  green  as  we  have 
found  it,  what  must  the  coming  world  be  like  ?  Let  us  comfort 
ourselves  as  St.  Paul  did  (in  infinitely  worse  times),  that  the  suffer- 
ings of  this  present  time  are  not  worthy  to  be  compared  with  the 
glory  that  shall  be  revealed.  It  is  not  fair  either  to  St.  Paul  or  to 
God — to  quote  the  one  text  about  the  creation  groaning  and  tra- 
vailing, without  the  other,  which  says,  that  it  will  not  groan  or  tra- 
vail long.  Would  the  mother  who  has  groaned  and  travailed  and 
brought  forth  children — would  she  give  up  those  children  for  the 
sake  of  not  having  had  the  pain  ?  No.  Then  believe  that  the  world 
and  every  human  being  in  it  who  has  really  groaned  and  travailed, 
will  not  give  up  its  past  pangs  for  the  sake  of  its  then  present  per- 
fection, but  will  look  back  on  this  life,  as  you  do  on  past  pain,  with 
glory  and  joy.  Oh !  let  the  bible  tell  its  own  tale,  and  be  faithful 
to  its  plam  words,  honestly  and  carefully  unde.'-stood,  and  all  will 
be  well.  I  come  to-morrow  .  .  .  .  and  I  shall  see  my  dar- 
ling children." 

They  now  settled  at  Eversley ;  but  as  winter  approached,  th 
damp  obliged  him,  on  his  wife's  account,  to  leave  the  rectory  again; 
but  not  his  people,  to  his  and  their  great  joy.  He  took  a  house  for 
six  months  on  Farley  Hill,  a  high  and  dry  spot  in  the  nett  parish. 
In  the  intervals  of  parochial  work  and  lectures  at  the  various 
diocesan  institutes,  he  brought  out  a  volume  of  "Sermons  for  the 
Times,"  and  wrote  a  brok  oi  Greek  fairy  tales  fcr  his  children, 


228  Charles  Kings  ley. 

which  caine  out  at  Christmas,  as  "  The  Heroes,"  dedicated  tc  Rose 
Mauvice,  and  Mary. 

to  j.  m.  ludlow,  esq. 

Farley  Court,  Nov.,  1855. 

**....  Some  of  your  hints  are  valuable.  I  feel  what  you  say 
about  not  Greek  and  too  Greek  ;  but  1  had  laid  my  account  with 
all  that  before  I  wrote.  If  1  tell  the  story  myself  as  you  wish,  1 
carii  give  the  children  the  Greek  spirit — either  morally  or  in  man- 
ner, therefore  I  have  adopted  a  sort  of  simple  ballad  tone,  and  tried 
to  make  my  prose  as  metrical  as  possible.  The  archaisms  are  all 
slips  in  the  rough  copy,  and  shall  be  amended,  as  shall  all  recondite 
allusions ;  but  you  must  remember  as  to  modernisms,  that  we 
Cambridge  men  are  taught  to  translate  Greek  by  its  modern  equi- 
valent even  to  slang.  As  to  the  word  '  thrall,'  about  which  you 
are  so  wroth,  I  was  not  aware  that  I  was  wrong.  It  shall  be 
amended  with  thanks.  My  own  belief  is,  that  by  taking  the  form 
1  have,  I  shall  best  do  what  I  want,  translate  the  children  back  into 
a  new  old  world,  and  make  them,  as  long  as  they  are  reading, 
forget  the  present,  wliich  is  the  true  method  oi  a — j/iusemefit,  while 
the  half  metrical  form  will  fix  it  in  their  minds,  and  give  them 
something  to  think  over.  I  don't  agree  with  you  at  all,  nor  does  F., 
about  omitting  allusions  which  the  children  can't  understand.  She 
agrees  with  me  that  that  is  just  what  they  like. 

"  Read,  Oh  read  Longfellow's  song  of  '  Hiawatha' — never  mind 
a  few  defects,  old  hole-picker  ;  but  read  a  set  of  myths  as  new  as 
delightful,  and  cause  Tom  Hughes  to  read  them  likewise." 

TO   THE    SAME. 

Farley  Court,  Dec.  30,  1855. 

"And  for  this  fame,  &c., 

*'  I  know  a  little  of  her  worth. 

"  And  I  will  tell  you  what  I  know. 

"  That,  in  the  first  place,  she  is  a  fact  ;  and  as  such,  it  is  not 
wise  to  ignore  her,  but  at  least  to  walk  once  round  her,  and  see 
her  back  as  well  as  her  front. 

"  The  case  to  me  seems  to  be  this.  A  man  feels  in  himself  the 
love  of  praise.  Every  man  does  who  is  not  a  brute.  It  is  a 
universal  human  faculty  ;  Carlyle  nicknames  it  the  si.x.th  sense. 
Who  made  it  ?  God  or  the  devil  ?  Is  it  flesh  or  spirit  ?  a  difticuU 
question  ;  because  tamed  animals  grow  to  possess  it  in  a  high 
degree  ;  and  our  metaphysic  d^es  not  yet  allow  them  spirit. 
But,  whichever  it  be,  it  cannot  be  for  bad  ;  only  bad  when  misdi- 
rected, and  not  controll-ed  by  reason,  the  faculty  which  judges 
IxJtween  good  and  evil.     Else  why  lias  God  put  His  love  of  i.fiai&» 


Fame  and  Praise.  229 

Into  the  heart  of  every  child  which  is  born  into  the  world,  and 
entwined  it  into  the  hoHest,  fihal,  and  family  affections,  as  the 
earliest  mairspring  of  good  actions?  Has  God  appointed  that 
every  child  shall  be  fed  first  with  a  necessary  lie,  and  afterwards 
come  to  the  knowledge  of  your  supposed  truth,  that  the  praise  of 
God  alone  is  to  be  sought  ?  Or  are  we  to  believe  that  the  child  is 
intended  to  be  taught  as  delicately  and  gradually  as  possible  the 
l^ainful  fact,  that  the  praise  of  all  men  is  not  equally  worth  hav- 
ing, and  to  use  his  critical  faculty  to  discern  the  praise  of  good  men 
from  the  praise  of  bad,  to  seek  the  former  and  despise  the  latter  ? 
I  should  say  that  the  last  was  the  more  reasonable.  And  this  I 
vill  say,  that  if  you  bring  up  any  child  to  care  nothing  for  the 
praise  of  its  parents,  its  elders,  its  pastors,  and  masters,  you  may 
make  a  fanatic  of  it,  or  a  shameless  cynib  :  but  you  will  neither 
make  it  a  man,  an  Englishman,  nor  a  Christian. 

"But  'our  Lord's  words  stand,  about  not  seeking  the  honor 
which  comes  from  men,  but  the  honor  which  comes  from  God 
only  !'  True,  they  do  stand,  and  our  Lord's  fact  stands  also,  the 
fact  that  he  has  created  every  child  to  be  educated  by  an  honor 
which  comes  from  his  parents  and  elders.  Both  are  true.  Here, 
as  in  most  spiritual  things,  you  have  an  antinomia,  an  apparent 
contradiction,  which  nothing  but  the  gospel  solves.  And  it  does 
solve  it ;  and  your  one-sided  view  of  the  text  resolves  itself  into 
just  the  same  fallacy  as"the  old  ascetic  one.  'We  must  love  God 
alone,  therefore  we  must  love  no  created  thing.'  To  which  St. 
John  answers  pertinently,  *  He  who  loveth  not  his  brother  whom 
he  hath  seen,  how  can  he  love  God  whom  he  hath  not  seen?' 
If  you  love  your  brethren,  you  love  Christ  in  them.  If  you  love 
their  praise,  you  love  the  praise  of  Christ  in  them.  For  consider 
this,  you  cannot  deny  that,  if  one  loves  any  person,  one  desires 
that  person's  esteem.  But  we  are  bound  to  love  all  men,  and  that 
is  our  highest  state.  Therefore,  in  our  highest  state,  we  shal 
desire  all  men's  esteem.  Paradoxical,  but  true.  If  we  believe  ir 
Christmas-day  ;  if  we  believe  in  Whitsunday,  we  shall  believe  that 
ClTist  is  in  all  men,  that  God's  spirit  is  abroad  in  the  earth,  anc 
therefore  the  dispraise,  misunderstanding,  and  calumny  of  men 
will  be  exquisitely  painful  to  us,  and  ought  to  be  so  ;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  esteem  of  men,  and  renown  among  men  for  doing 
good  deeds  will  be  inexpressibly  precious  to  us.  They  will  be 
signs  and  warrants  to  us  that  God  is  pleased  with  us,  that  we  are 
sharing  in  that  'honor  and  glory'  which  Paul  promises  again  and 
again,  with  no  such  scruples  as  yours,  to  those  who  lead  hmoic 
lives.  We  shall  not  neglect  the  voice  of  God  within  us  ;  but  we 
shall  remember  that  there  is  also  a  voice  of  God  without  us,  which 
we  must  listen  to  ;  and  that  in  a  Christian  land,  vox  populi,  pa- 
tiently and  discriminately  listened  to,  is  sure  to  be  fou\d  not  far  oil 
from  the  vox  Dei. 


230  Charles  Kingsley. 

'•  Now,  let  mc  seriously  urge  this  last  fact  on  you.  'Of  couise,  in 
listening  to  the  voice  of  the  man  outside  there  is  a  clanger,  as  there 
is  in  the  use  of  any  faculty.  You  may  employ  it,  according  to 
Divine  reason  and  grace,  for  ennobling  and  righteous  purposes  ;  01 
you  may  degrade  it  to  carnal  and  seltish  ones ;  so  you  may  degiade 
tile  love  of  praise  into  vanity,  into  longing  for  the  honor  which 
comes  from  men,  by  pandering  to  their  passions  and  opinions,  b} 
using  your  powers  as  they  would  too  often  like  to  use  theirs,  for 
mere  self-aggrandisement,  by  saying  in  your  heart — quam  piilckrum 
digito  monstrari  et  dicier  hie  est.  That  is  the  man  who  wrote  the 
fine  poem,  who  painted  the  fine  picture,  and  so  forth,  till,  by  giv- 
ing way  to  this,  a  man  may  give  way  to  forms  of  vanity  as  base 
as  the  red  Indian  who  sticks  a  fox's  tail  on,  and  dances  about 
boasting  of  his  brute  cunning.  I  know  all  about  that,  as  well  as 
any  poor  son  of  Adam  ever  did.  But  I  know,  too,  that  to  desire 
the  esteem  of  as  many  rational  men  as  possible  ;  in  a  word,  to 
desire  an  honorable  and  true  renown  for  having  done  good  in  rny 
generation,  has  nothing  to  do  with  that  ;  and  the  more  I  fear  and 
struggle  against  the  former,  the  more  I  see  the  exceeding  beauty 
and  divineness,  and  everlasting  glory  of  the  latter  as  an  entrance 
into  the  communion  of  saints. 

"  Of  course,  all  this  depends  on  whether  we  do  believe  that 
Christ  is  in  every  man,  and  that  God's  spirit  is  abroad  in  the  earth. 
Of  course,  again,  it  will  be  very  difficult  to  know  who  speaks  by 
God's  spirit,  and  who  sees  by  Christ's  light  in  him  ;  but  surely  the 
wiser,  the  humbler  path,  is  to  give  men  credit  for  as  much  wisdom 
and  rightness  as  possible,  and  to  believe  that  when  one  is  found 
fault  with,  one  is  probably  in  the  wrong.  For  myself,  on  looking 
back,  I  see  clearly  with  shame  and  sorrow,  that  the  obloquy  which 
I  have  brought  often  on  myself  and  on  the  good  cause,  has  been 
almost  all  of  it  my  own  fault — that  1  have  given  the  devil  and  bad 
men  a  handle,  not  by  caring  what  people  would  say,  but  by  not 
caring — by  fanc}'ing  that  I  was  a  very  grand  fellow,  who  was  going 
to  speak  what  I  knew  to  be  true,  in  spite  of  all  fools  (and  really 
did  and  do  intend  so  to  do),  while  all  the  while  I  was  deceiving 
myself,  and  unaware  of  a  canker  at  the  heart  the  very  opposite  to 
the  one  against  which  you  warn  me — I  mean  the  proud,  self-willed, 
self-conceited  spirit  which  made  no  allowance  for  other  men's 
weakness  or  ignorance  ;  nor  again,  for  their  superior  experience 
and  wisdom  on  points  which  I  had  never  considered — which  took 
a  pride  in  shocking  and  startling,  and  defying,  and  hitting  as  hard 
as  I  could,  and  fancied,  blasphemously,  as  I  think,  that  the  word  of 
God  had  come  to  me  only,  and  went  out  from  me  only.  God 
forgive  me  for  these  sins,  as  well  as  for  my  sins  in  the  opposite 
direction  ;  but  for  these  sins  especially,  because  I  see  them  to  be 
darker  and  more  dangerous  than  the  others. 

"  For  there  has  been  gradually  revealed  to  m-  (what  my  raanj 


The  Voice  Within  and  the  Voice  Without.   231 

leadings  in  the  lives  of  fanatics  and  ascetics  ought  to  have  taught 
me  long  before),  that  there  is  a  terrible  gulf  ahead  of  that  nol 
caring  what  men  say.  Of  course  it  is  a  feeUng  on  which  the  spiri/ 
must  fall  back  in  hours  of  need,  and  cry,  '  Thou  God  knowest 
mine  integrity.  I  have  believed,  and  therefore  I  will  speak  ;  Thou 
art  true,  though  all  men  be  liars  ! '  But  I  am  convinced  that  that  is 
a  frame  in  which  no  man  can  live,  or  is  meant  to  live  ;  that  it  i& 
only  to  be  resorted  to  in  fear  and  trembling,  after  deepest  self- 
examination,  and  self-purification,  and  earnest  prayer.  For  other- 
wise, lAidlow,  a  man  gets  to  forget  that  voice  of  God  without  him, 
in  his  determination  to  listen  to  nothing  but  the  voice  of  God 
within  him,  and  so  he  falls  into  two  dangers.  He  forgets  that  there 
is  a  voice  of  God  without  him.  He  loses  trust  in,  and  charity  to, 
and  reverence  for  his  fellow-men  ;  he  learns  to  despise,  deny,  and 
quench  the  Spirit,  and  to  despise  prophesyings,  and  so  becomes 
gradually  cynical,  sectarian,  fanatical. 

"  And  then  comes  a  second  and  worse  danger.  Crushed  into 
self,  and  his  own  conscience  and  scJiema  inundi,  he  loses  the 
opportunity  of  correcting  his  impression  of  the  voice  of  God 
within,  by  the  testimony  of  the  voice  of  God  without ;  and  so  he 
begins  to  mistake  more  and  more  the  voice  of  that  very  flesh  of 
his,  which  he  fancies  he  has  conquered,  for  the  voice  of  God,  and 
to  become,  without  knowing  it,  an  autotheist.  And  out  of  that 
springs  electicism,  absence  of  tenderness  for  men,  for  want  of 
sympatliy  ivith  men;  as  he  makes  his  own  conscience  his  standard 
for  God,  so  he  makes  his  own  character  the  standard  for  men  ;  and 
so  he  becomes  narrow,  hard,  and  if  he  be  a  man  of  strong  will  and 
feelings,  often  very  inhuman  and  cruel.  This  is  the  history  of 
thousands — of  Jeromes,  Lauds,  Puritans  who  scourged  Quakers, 
Quakers  who  cursed  Puritans;  Nonjurors,  who  though  they  would 
die  rather  than  offend  their  own  conscience  in  owning  William, 
would  ]:)lot  with  James  to  murder  William,  or  devastate  England 
with  Irish  Rapparees  and  Auvergne  dragoons.  This,  in  fact,  is  the 
spiritual  diagnosis  of  those  many  pious  persecutors,  who,  though 
neither  hypocrites  or  blackguards  themselves,  have  used  both  as 
instruments  of  their  fanaticism. 

"  Against  this  I  have  to  guard  myself,  you  little  know  how 
nuicli,  and  to  guard  my  children  still  more,  brought  up,  as  the) 
will  be,  under  a  father,  who,  deeply  discontented  with  the  present 
generation,  cannot  but  express  that  discontent  at  times.  To  make 
my  children  '  banausoi,'  insolent  and  scoffing  radicals,  believing  in 
nobody  and  nothing  but  themselves,  would  be  perfectly  easy  in  me 
if  I  were  to  make  the  watch-word  of  my  house,  '  Never  mind  v/hat 
people  say.'  On  the  contrary,  I  shall  teach  them  that  there  are 
plenty  of  good  people  in  the  world,  that  public  opinion  has  pretty 
surely  an  undercurrent  of  the  water  of  life,  below  all  its  froth  and 
garbage,  and  that  in  a  Christian  country  like  this,  where  with  al) 


232  Charles  Kings  ley 

faults,  a  man  (sooner  or  later)  has  fair  play  and  a  fair  hearrtig,  the 
esteem  of  good  men,  and  the  blessings  of  the  poor,  will  be  a  pretty 
sure  sign  that  they  have  the  blessing  of  God  also  ;  and  I  shall  tell 
them,  when  they  grow  older,  that  ere  they  feel  called  on  to  become 
martyrs,  in  defending  the  light  within  them  against  all  the  world, 
they  must  lirst  have  taken  care  most  patiently,  and  with  all  self- 
distrust  and  humility,  to  make  full  use  of  the  light  which  is 
around  them,  and  has  been  here  for  ages  before  them,  and 
would  be  here  still,  though  they  had  never  been  born  or  thought 
of.  The  antinomy  between  this  and  their  own  conscience  may 
be  painful  enough  to  them  some  day.  To  what  thinking  man 
is  it  not  a  life-long  battle  ?  but  I  shall  not  dream  that  by  denying 
one  pole  of  the  antinomy  I  can  solve  it,  or  do  anything  but  make 
them,  by  cynicism  or  fanaticism,  bury  their  talent  in  the  earth, 
and  fiot  do  the  work  which  God  has  given  them  to  do,  because 
they  will  act  like  a  parson  who,  before  beginning  his  sermon, 
should  tirst  kick  his  congregation  out  of  doors,  and  turn  the  key  ; 
and  not  like  St.  Paul,  who  became  all  things  to  all  m<n,  if  by  any 
means  h"  might  save  some." 


CHAPTER    XV. 

1856. 
Aged  37. 

Winter  at  Farl;y  Court — Letter  from  a  Sailor  at  Hong  Kong — Union  Stiikcs  — 
F'ishing  Poem  and  Fishing  Flies — The  Sabbath  Questi  )n — Invitation  to  Snow- 
donia — Visit  to  North  Wales — American  Visitors — Pieface  to  Tauler's  Ser- 
mons. 

The  wintei-  of  1856,  spent  at  Farley  Court,  a  lovely  spot  in  Swal- 
lowfield  parish,  adjoining  to  and  overlooking  Eversley,  was  a  bright 
and  happy  one.  Living  on  high  ground,  and  in  a  dry  house,  acted 
as  a  tonic  to  him  as  well  as  to  his  family,  and  infused  fresh  life  into 
his  preaching  and  his  parish  work.  In  his  night-schools,  which 
were  well  attended,  he  gave  lectures  on  mines,  shells,  and  other 
subjects  connected  with  Natural  History,  illustrated  with  large 
drawings  of  his  own.  The  appearance  of  a  ghost  in  the  neighbor- 
hood, which  had  greatly  alarmed  his  parishioners,  but  which  he 
stalked  down  and  found,  as  he  expected,  was  a  white  deer,  escaped 
from  Calverly  Park,  led  to  his  preaching  a  sermon  on  Ghosts  to  his 
people.  The  old  incubus  of  the  Crimean  War  was  removed  after 
two  years  pressure,  and  the  new  one  of  the  Indian  Mutiny,  which 
weighed  even  more  heavily  upon  him  from  the  thought  of  the  suf- 
ferings of  women  and  children,  was  as  yet  in  the  future,  and  his 
heart  rebounded  again.  The  formation  of  the  camp  at  Aldershot 
created  fresh  interests  for  him  at  this  time  and  during  his  remaining 
years,  by  bringing  a  new  element  into  his  congregation  at  Eversley, 
and  giving  him  the  friendship  of  many  Crimean  officers.  In  July 
he  was  at  Aldershot  on  the  memorable  occasion  of  the  Queen's 
first  inspection  of  the  renmant  of  her  Crimean  army,  and  saw  the 
march-past  of  the  different  regiments  before  Her  Majesty,  who  was 
on  horseback — a  sight  never  to  be  forgotten,  and  which  impressed 
him  deeply. 

In  August  the  long  dreamt  of  expedition  to  Snowdon  with  his 
friends  Mr.  Tom  Hughes  and  Mr.  Tom  Taylor,  which  resulted  ijj 


234  Cha7  les  Kings  ley. 

the  writing  of  "Two  Years  Ago,"  was  accomplisheci.  Plis  sjja;« 
hours  were  devoted  to  the  study  and  classification  of  the  Phrygana;, 
which  was  carried  on  more  by  the  side  of  trout  streams  in  North 
Wales  and  in  an  occasional  day's  fishing  at  Wotton  and  Wild  Moor, 
than  in  his  own  stud)'.  He  contributed  articles  to  the  "  North 
British  Review"  on  Art  and  Puritanism,  and  to  "Frazer's  Maga- 
zine" on  M}  sties  and  Mysticism,*  and  began  his  new  romance. 
During  the  summer  an.i  autumn  many  a  pilgrimage  was  made  by 
Americans  to  the  home  of  the  author  whose  works  were  then  per 
haps  more  appreciated  at  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic  than  in  hif 
own  country.  Among  these  were  Mrs.  Beecher  Stovve  and  hei 
sister,  Mrs.  Perkins. 

The  following  letters  will  show  the  life  and  vigor  which  marked 
his  private  correspondence  this  year  : 

to  t.  hughes,  esq. 

Farley  Court. 

''  I  wish  you  would  make  a  vow,  and  keep  it  strong  ;  for  F.  says, 
that  if  you  will,  I  may  :  and  that  is  not  to  '  cross  the  sea  like  Sophia,' 
but  to  go  with  me  to  Snowdon  next  summer  for  a  parson's  week, 
i.e.  twelve  days.  For  why?  I  have  long  promised  my  children  a 
book  to  be  called  '  Letters  from  Snowdon,'  and  I  want  to  rub  up 
old  memories,  and  to  get  new  ones  in  parts  which  I  have  not  seen. 
You  do  not  know  how  easy  it  is.  You  get  second  class  into  the 
mail  at  Euston  Square  at  9  p.m.,  and  breakfast  at  Aber,  under  the 
Carnadds,  next  morning.  An  ordnance  map,  a  compass,  fishing 
tackle,  socks,  and  slippers  are  all  you  want.  Moreover,  I  do  know 
where  to  fish,  and  one  of  the  crackest  fishers  of  the  part  has  pro- 
mised to  give  me  as  many  flies  of  his  own  making  as  1  like,  while 
another  can  lend  us  boat  or  coracle,  if  we  went  to  fish  Gwynnant 
Dinas.  I  conceive  that,  humanly  speaking,  if  we  went  to  work 
judgmatically,  we  could  live  for  12s.  a-day  each  at  the  outside  (if 
we  are  canny,  at  less),  kill  an  amount  of  fish  perfectly  frightful,  and 
all  the  big  ofies,  by  the  simple  expedient  of  sleeping  by  day,  walking 
evening  and  morning,  and  fishing  during  the  short  hot  nights.  Wales 
is  a  cheap  place,  if  you  avoid  show  inns  ;  and,  save  a  night  at  Capel 
Curig,  we  need  never  enter  a  show  inn.    We  may  stay  two  or  three 

days  at  Peny-Gwyrrryynnwwdddelld there — I  can't  spell  it,  but 

it  sounds  Pcnnygoorood,  which  is  the  divinest  pig-sty  beneath  the 
canopy,  and  at  Bedgelert  old  Jones  the  clerk,  and  knig  of  fisher- 
men, will  take  us  in — and  do  for  us — if  we  let  hini.     The  parsoB 


*  Since  published  in  the  Miscellanies. 


Body  add  Soul.  235 

of  Bedgelert  is  a  friend  of  mine  also,  but  we  must  ;iepend  on  oui 
own  legs,  and  on  stomachs,  which  can  face  brax)  mutton,  young 
taters,  Welsh  porter,  which  is  the  identical  drainings  of  Noah's 
flood  turned  sour,  and  brandy  of  more  strength  than  legality. 
Bread  horrid.  Fleas  MCCCC  ad  infinitum.  Bugs  a  sprinkling, 
For  baths,  the  mountain  brook  ;  for  towel,  a  wisp  of  any  endogen 
save  Scirpus  triqueter,  or  Juncus  squarrosus  ;  and  for  cure*  of  all 
ills,  and  supplement  of  all  defects,  baccy.  Do  come — you  have  no 
notion  of  the  grandeur  of  the  scenery,  small  as  it  is  compared  with 
the  Alps." 

TO  ,  ESQ. 

February  27,  1856. 

"  Your  letter  delighted  me  .  .  .  .  *  *  *  gave  me  your  mes- 
sage. My  answer  is,  I  am  going  to  preach  on  'Saved  by  Hope' 
to  my  people,  on  Sunday,  and  also  when  I  preach  for  my  father  at 
Chelsea  on  (D.  V.)  April  27,  for  the  District  Visiting  Society  .... 
With  regard  to  *  *  *  1  fear  neither  you  nor  any  man  can  give  him 
a  fresh  back  to  his  head  :  enlarge  that  deficient  driving  wheel  in  the 
cerebellum,  so  as  to  keep  the  thinking  and  feeling  part  of  the  brain 
at  work.  It  is  sad  to  see  how  much  faults  of  character  seetn  to  de- 
pend on  physiognomic  defects  ;  but  do  they  really  depend  upon  it  ? 
Is  a  man's  spirit  weak  because  he  has  a  poor  jaw,  and  a  small  back 
to  his  head  ;  or  is  his  jaw  poor,  and  his  cerebellum  small,  because 
his  spirit  is  weak  ?  I  would  fain  believe  the  latter  ;  fain  believe 
that  the  body  is  the  expression  of  the  soul,  and  is  moulded  by  it, 
and  not,  as  Combe  would  have  it,  the  soul  by  the  body  :  my  reason 
points  to  that  belief;  but  I  shrink  from  my  own  reason,  because  it 
seems  to  throw  such  tremendous  moral  responsibility  on  man,  to 
forbid  one's  saying  'poor  fellow,  it  is  not  his  fault,  it  is  a  constitu- 
tional defect ; '  for  if  one  says  that  a  man  is  not  responsible  for  the 
form  of  his  own  soul — where  does  all  virtue  and  vice  go  to  ?  And 
this  brings  one  straight  to  the  question  of  madness,  on  which  I  fully 
agree  with  you.  I  said  so  in  print,  long  ago,  in  a  sermon  on  Ahab 
at  Ramoth  Gilead,  which  you  will  find  in  my  first  set  of  National 
Sermons.  And  I  have  seen  cases  myself  which  1  could  attribute 
to  nothing  else.  I  cannot  but  believe  that  a  peculiai-  kind  of 
epilepsy  of  which  I  have  had  two  cases  among  the  poor  of  my 
paiish,  and  some  of  the  horrible  phaenomena  of  puerperal  mania, 
are  '  the  unclean  spirit'  of  the  New  Testament.  I  am  j^erfectly 
certain  that  the  accesses  of  mingled  pride,  rage,  suspicion,  and 
hatred  of  everybody  and  everything,  accompanied  by  the  most  un- 
speakable sense  of  loneliness  and  '  darkness'  {St.  John's  metaphor, 
for  it  is  the  only  one),  which  were  common  to  me  in  youth  and 
are  now,  by  God's  grace,  very  rare  (though  I  am  just  as  capable  of 
them  as  ever,  when  I  am  at  imawaves  and  give  place  to  the  devil 


236  Charles  Kings  ley, 

by  harsh  jiulgnients  or  bitter  words)  were  and  are  nothing  less  than 
temporary  ])ossessicin  by  a  devil.  I  am  sure  that  the  way  in  which 
those  fits  pass  off  in  a  few  minutes,  as  soon  as  I  get  ashamed  ol 
myself,  is  not  to  be  explained  by  '  habit,'  either  physical  or  moral 
(though  '  moral  habits  '  I  don't  believe  in),  but  by  the  actual  in- 
tervention of  an  unseen  personage,  I  believe  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
Himself,  driving  away  that  devil.  I  had  once  si  temporary  machiian 
here  among  our  cottagers,  who  in  his  first  fit  tore  off"  his  clothes 
and  ran  away  into  the  woods  naked.  (I  suspect  that  desire  of 
nakedness  to  be  the  blind  effort  to  be  merely  himself,  and  to  escape 
from  the  sense  of  oppression  caused  by  something,  or  being  over 
and  above  self,  i.e.,  from  possession).  In  that  fit  I  did  not  see  him, 
it  was  before  I  came  here.  In  his  second  he  turned  melancholy 
mad,  walked  up  and  down  in  silence,  and  when  he  spoke,  declared 
that  the  devil  had  hold  of  him,  and  would  not  let  him  sleep.  The 
Doctor  luckily  believed  in  demoniacal  possession,  and  came  to  me, 
saying,  '  I  can't  cure  this  man's  mind  by  making  his  liver  act. 
You  must  make  his  liver  act  by  curing  his  mind.'  1  went  to  the 
patient  and  agreed  with  him  fully,  that  the  devil  7vas  in  him  ;  and 
I  said,  '  I  will  tell  you  why  he  is  in  you  ;  because,  my  dear  man, 
you  have  been  a  thief,  and  a  cheat,  and  a  liar '  (as  all  the  world 
knew),  '  and  have  sold  yourself  to  the  father  of  lies.  But  if  you 
will  pray  to  God  to  forgive  you  (and  then  I  set  forth  those  precious 
promises  in  Christ,  which  the  Record  thinks  I  don't  believe),  '  and 
will  lead  a  new  and  honest  life,  you  may  snap  your  fingers  at  the 
devil.'  And  after  awhile  the  man  got  well,  and  has  had  no  return 
for  seven  years.  I  did  that  in  the  face  of  the  troublesome  fact, 
that  his  son  (and  a  great  rogue  too^  was  subject  to  melancholy 
madness  also,  and  that  his  sister  was  evidently  cracked — her  mad- 
ness being  causeless  jealousy.  That  looked  like  a  'constitutional' 
defect  in  the  family  blood  ;  but  I  thought  the  man  must  know  his 
own  business  best,  and  took  him  at  his  word,  and  on  the  same  plan 
I  had  very  fair  success  with  his  son  also.  But  enough — only  pray 
write  to  me  again  on  this  matter  that  we  may  comj^are  notes.  1 
cannot  tell  you  the  relief  to  me  to  find  a  man  like  minded  ;  and 
therefore  write,  when  you  have  a  spare  five  minutes,  on  any  matter. 
You  are  one  by  whose  confidence  I  feel  honored,  and  1  do  not  use 
that  word  lightly. 

"  There  is  much  mere  in  your  letter  I  must  answer  another  iay." 

TO     REV.    F.  D.  MAURICE. 

Farley  Court,  March,  1856. 

".  .  .  .  I  enjoy  ycur  sermons  weekly  very  much,  and  a 
good  deal  which  you  say  in  them,  hits  me  very  hard.  What  glib 
cruelty  and  nonsense  I  have  talked  in  past  times  !  If  I  wanted  a 
pi  oof  of  the  '  corruption  of  human  nature,'  I  could  find  no  plaine/ 


Calvinism.  237 

one  than  the  way  in  which  really  amiable  and  thoughtful  f,eople 
take  up  with  doctrines  which  outrage  their  own  reason  and  morality, 
simply  because  they  find  them  ready-made  to  theii  hands  ;  and 
now  it  seems  as  if  the  second-hand  creed  was  actually  conquering. 
I  go  into  no  middle-class  house,  religious  or  irreligious,  without 
finding  their  whole  religious  library  composed  of  the  very  school 

which  we  are  fighting  against — Adam  Clarke,  C-  ■ — ,  S ,  etc. 

And  what  hope  would  one  have,  if  one  did  not  know  that  under- 
neath all  this  lay  the  strangest  unrest  in,  and  dissatisfaction  with, 
and  disbelief  in  it  all.  I  wish  I  could  have  some  talk  with  you  ; 
for  unless  I  can  get  from  you  some  of  your  moderate  and  charitable 
and  two-sided  notions,  I  shall  begin  to  regard  Calvin  as  a  child  of 
the  Devil,  and  Calvinism  as  the  upas  tree,  which  Satan  planted  in 
the  Lord's  garden  at  the  Reformation  to  poison  all  with  its  shade. 
The  influence  of  Calvinism  abroad  seems  to  me  to  have  been  uni- 
formly ruinous,  destructive  equally  of  political  and  moral  life,  a 
blot  and  a  scandal  on  the  Reformation  ;  and  now  that  it  has  at  last 
got  the  upper  hand  in  England,  can  we  say  much  more  for  it  ? 


TO    JOHN    BULLAE,   ESQ. 

1856. 

" .  .  .  .  Since  I  saw  you  I  have  felt  a  great  deal.  A  dear 
friend  has  suddenly  lost  a  wife,  who  also  was  very  dear  to  us.  I  was 
on  the  spot  and  saw  all ;  and  it  was  very  dreadful,  in  spite  of  all  the 
perfect  hope  behind.  God  help  us,  what  cobwebs  we  all  are  ; 
why  should  He  not  sweep  us  away,  as  He  does  better  than  us  ? 
It  is  a  very  searching  thought.  .  .  .  How  such  moments  as 
these  draw  men  near  each  other  !  Mrs.  Kmgsley  last  night  just 
escaped  a  horrible  accident,  from  the  fall  of  a  horse.  I  felt  her 
danger  draw  me  nearer  to  every  one  whom  I  esteemed,  by  shock- 
ing me  with  the  fearful  possibility  of  loneliness — though  only  for  a 
time  at  worst — still  loneliness,  and  very  dreadful. " 

Among  the  letters  of  thxS  year,  he  was  deeply  touched  by  the 
following  from  a  naval  officer,  dated  H.M.S,  '•  St.  George,"  off 
II  jng  Kong  : 

*'  Among  the  many  blessings  for  which  I  have  had  to  thank  God 
this  night,  the  most  special  has  been  for  the  impressions  produced 
by  your  noble  sermon  of  '  Westward  Ho  ! '  Some  months  ago  J 
resd  it  for  the  first  time,  then  sailed  on  a  long  cruize,  and  now  on 
returning  have  read  it  again  with  prayer  that  has  been  answered, 
for  God's  blessing  has  gone  with  it.  I  feel  as  I  never  felt  before, 
that  Protestantism  is  the  religion  of  this  life  especially,  and  that  1 
have  been  heeding  the  future  to  the  neglect  of  the  living  present. 
Many  a  day  of  late,  thinking  of  you,  I  have  gone  on  deck  to  uvy 


238  Charles  Kings  ley. 

duty  and  seen  God,  where  theoretically  only  I  jiave  besn  in  the 
habit  of  looking  for  Him,  on  the  sea,  and  in  the  clouds,  and  faces 
of  men  ;  aud  the  Holy  Spirit  descending,  has  stirred  my  pulses 
with  the  sense  of  universal  love  prevailing,  above,  around,  and 
beneath. 

"  '  O  Uncreate,  unseen,  and  undefined,  source  of  all  light,  and 
fcuntain  of  all  mind,  lurks  there  in  all  the  wide  expanse,  one  spot 
— above,  around,  beneath,  where  Thou  art  not  ?  '  I  am  able  to 
speak  of  God  and  of  religion  with  less  of  the  humiliating  hesita 
tion  that  I  am  accustomed  to,  and  trust  th^t  He  will  give  me  that 
manliness  that  will  enable  me  so  to  talk  of  His  workings,  which, 
,'iias  !  we  are  in  the  habit  of  practically  ignoring.  Accept  then,  my 
dear  sir,  this  tribute  to  your  own  manly,  plain,  and  practical  preach- 
ing. Doubtlessly  it  has  found  an  echo  far  and  wide  ;  to  '  roll  from 
soul  to  soul,  and  grow  for  ever,  and  for  ever  ! ' 

'*  May  God  raise  up  for  us  many  such  teachers,  and  long  preserve 
you  in  all  your  faculties  of  heart  and  head,  to  testify  of  Him,  and 
prejiare  the  world  for  the  coming  of  Christ. 

"  Sir  Michael  Seymour  has  morning  prayers,  daily,  in  his  own 
ship — an  almost  solitary  instance  in  the  navy  ;  but  as  the  admiral 
sets  the  example,  may  we  not  hope  that  the  good  old  habit  of  those 
days  when  '  first,  above  all  things,'  it  was  provided  '  that  God  be 
duly  served  twice  every  day,'  is  returning  ? 

'  Once  the  welcome  liijht  has  broken, 
Wlio  shall  say 
What  the  unimagined  glories 

Of  the  day, 
What  the  evil  that  shall  perish 

In  its  ray? 
Aid  the  dawning  tongue  and  pen, 
Aid  it  hopes  of  honest  men  ; 
Aid  it  paper — aid  it  type — 
Aid  it  for  the  hour  is  ripe  ; 
And  our  earnest  must  not  slacken 

Into  play, 
Men  of  thought  and  men  of  action 
Clear  the  way  1 ' 

•'  Ever,  J  pray  so  to  continue,  I  remain,  my  dear  sir, 

"  Your  grateful  brother  in  the  faith, 

"  R.  N." 

"  P.  S. — As  a  nautical  man  I  must  take  the  liberty  of  pointing 
out  one  little  nautical  error,  and  only  one.  You  describe  the 
cable  of  the  '  Rose'  as  rattling  through  the  hawse-hole,  forgetting 


A   Sailor  s    Testimony.  235 

that  then  {and  for  230  years  afterwards)  hemp  cab  es  aione  were 
used,  in  which  there  is  httle  rattle,  as  any  one  who  has  been  com- 
pelled to  work  them  will  testify.  Yet,  on  second  thought,  you  are 
not  far  out,  for  before  letting  go  hemp  cables  you  get  a  range  up 
before  the  bilts,  which  portion  runs  out  rapidly  enough  ;  but  it  is 
not  done  now  with  chain.  You  would  have  made  a  first-rat^ 
ailor,  sir  !  " 

This  was  one  among  the  many  letters  which  he  received  about 
his  novel  of  "  Westward  Ho  ! "  The  writer  some  years  afterwards 
made  himself  known  to  him  as  Captain  Alston,  of  H.M.S.  "St. 
George,"  and  a  strong  personal  attachment  was  formed  between 
.  the  two  men  who  had  so  much  in  common  ;  and  up  to  Captain 
Alston's  lamented  death,  which  occurred  a  short  time  before  that  o( 
his  friend,  he  consulted  Mr.  Kingsley  on  all  points  connected  with 
his  noble  work,  which  was  latterly  on  board  the  Reformatory  Train- 
ing Ships  on  the  Thames  and  the  Clyde.  After  his  first  visit  to 
Eversley,  Captain  Alston  writes  : 

"  It  does  not  pay,  my  dear  Mr.  Kingsley,  to  stay  with  you.  1 
don't  know  when  I  felt  so  miserable  as  I  did  yesterday.  Positively 
I  thought  incipient  heart-breaking  had  commenced  ;  it  felt  very  like 
it — chokiness  and  all  that,  in  the  train  going  up.  I  thought  I  should 
shake  it  off  after  dinner,  but  could  not.  My  pipe  made  me  worse, 
for  it  reminded  me  only  of  your  snuggery,  your  arm-chair,  your 
talk,  and  your  kindness.  The  more  I  feel  kindness  the  inore 
incapable  1  am  of  thanking  people  for  it  to  their  face.  In  tijs 
land  of  the  hereafter  we  shall  know  each  other.  Then  soul  will 
come  to  soul,  and  you  will  know  how  much  I  care  for  you  ;  the  red 
Indian  spirit  won't  let  him  write  the  proper  word  (or  perhaps  it  is 
from  those  old  hard  hearts,  the  sons  of  Odin,  one  inherits  this  re- 
serve), and  I  will  put  it  down  to  race,  and  bide  that  time,  and  say 
no  more  about  it 

"  Salute  all  in  the  two  houses  for  me,  and  old  S.,  and  take  a 
Dieu  VGUS  garde  from 

"  A.  H.  Alston." 

To  a  friend  at  Sheffield,  he  wrote  on  the  sub  ect  of  Trades 
Unions  : 

"  \i  these  trade  unions  are  to  be  allowed  to  exist,  they  can  only 
exist  on  the  ground  of  being  not  only  organs  for  combination,  but 
for  keeping  the  combination  men  within  the  law.  If  they  will  not 
disprove  that  such  outrages  have  been   committed  by  union   men; 


240  Charles  Kiugshy. 

if  they  will  not,  in  honor  to  their  own  class,  be  the  first  to  drag 
such  hounds  to  justice  ;  if  they  will  do  nothing  to  free  themselves 
from  the  old  stigma  that  from  1820-48,  they  have  themselves 
notoriously  engaged  in  such  outrages  and  murders — then  let  them 
be  put  down  by  law  as  incapable  morally  as  politico-economically. 
\Y\\\\  you  I  have  defended  the  right  of  combination  among  the 
?voikmen,  in  hope  that  they  would  become  wiser  than  of  yore. 
But  if  they  continue  to  murder,  I  see  nothing  for  them  but  the  jusl 
judgment  of  public  0]:iinion  which  will  sweep  them  away,  and  I  fear 
inaugurate  a  reign  of  tyranny  and  of  capital.  I  and  others  have 
been  seeing  with  dread  the  growing  inclination  of  the  governing 
classes  to  put  down  these  trades  unions,  &c.,  by  strong  measures. 
What  am  1  to  say  when  I  see  the  working  men  themselves,  in  the 
face  of  this  danger,  justifying  the  measures  of  those  who  wish  to  be 
hard  on  them  ?  I  have  seen  enough  of  trade  unions  to  suspect 
•■hat  the  biggest  rogues  and  the  loudest  charlatans  are  the  men 
who  lead  or  mislead  the  honest  working  men  ;  but  if  the  honest 
working  men  themselves  make  no  move  towards  detecting  and 
exposing  the  authors  of  such  outrages,  they  must  suffer  with  their 
blind  and  base  leaders.  If  they  fancy  they  are  too  strong  for  the 
classes  above  them,  that  they  can  defy  the  laws  of  England  and  the 
instincts  of  humanity,  then  they  will  find  themselves  mistaken, 
even  if  they  have  to  be  taught  their  folly  by  a  second  Bristol  riots 
or  a  second  Peterloo." 

In  March,  1856,  among  many  other  letters  about  his  books 
came  one  from  a  perfect  stranger,  as  he  called  himself,  dated  from 
Cambridge,  saying,  he  felt  compelled  after  reading  the  "Sermons 
for  the  Times,"  to  express  his  own  deep  debt  of  gratitude  : 

"  I  immediately  took  them  to  a  friend,  whose  remorse  for  a  past 
course  of  sin  has  often  led  him  to  the  very  verge  of  suicide,  and  he 
has  just  been  to  me  with  a  heart  full  of  grateful  delight,  and  told 
nie  that  the  sermon  on  'Salvation  '  has  made  him  a  completely  new 
creature.  I  have  ventured  to  trespass  on  your  time,  because  I 
cannot  help  thinking  that  a  minister  of  God  must  have  sore  trials 
t«)  bear,  and  bitter  disappointments,  and  the  experience  that  he  has 
planted,  not  altogether  in  vain,  the  good  seed,  cannot  but  be  con- 
fding." 

In  writing  to  another  strange  who  had  made  full  confession  o( 
his  doubts  and  difticulties  to  him,  Mr.  Kingsley  says  : 

"Your  CKperiences  interested  me  deeply,  and  contirm  my  own. 
\n  atheist  1  never  was ;  but  in  my  early  life  I  wandered  through 
tnany  doubts  and  vain  attempts  to  explain  to  myself  the  riddle  of 


Off  for  Rest.  241 

life  and  this  world,  till  I  found  that  no  explanation  was  so  complete 
as  the  one  which  one  learnt  at  one's  mother's  knee.  Complete 
nothing  can  be  on  this  side  of  the  grave,  on  which  St.  Paul  himself 
said,  that  he  only  saw  through  a  glass  darkly  ;  but  complete  enough 
to  give  ormfort  to  the  weary  hearts  of  my  poor  laboring  folk,  and 

lo  mine  also,  which  is  weary  enough  at  times I  am 

much  pleased  to  hear  what  you  say  about  your  mother.  Believe 
me,  the  good  old-fashioned  Church-folk,  when  they  were  good,  were 
nearer  the  truth  than  either  Exeter-Hallite  or  Puseyite " 

With  spring  his  thoughts  turned  to  fishing ;  and  one  April  morn- 
ing when  the  south-westerly  wind  wafted  certain  well-known  sounds 
from  the  Camp,  the  South-Western  Railway,  and  Heckfield  Place, 
to  the  Httle  Rectory,  these  hnes  were  written  and  put  into  his 
safe's  hand  : 

Oh  blessed  drums  of  Aldershot  ! 

Oh  blessed  south-west  train  ! 
Oh  blessed,  blessed  Speaker's  clock, 

All  prophesying  rain  ! 

Oh  blessed  yaffil,  laughing  loud  ! 

Oh  blessed  falling  glass  ! 
Oh  blessed  fan  of  cold  grey  cloud  ! 

Oh  blessed  smelling  grass  ! 

Oh  bless'd  southwind  that  toots  his  h(»m 

Through  every  hole  and  crack  ! 
I'm  off  at  eight  to-morrow  morn, 

To  bring  such  fishes  back  ! 

April  I,  1856. 

to  tom  hughes,  esq. 

Farley  Court. 

"When  can  you  come  and  see  us  ?  We  return  to  Eversley  on 
Easter  Monday  ;  all  that  week  swallowed  up  in  confirmations, 
leastwise  till  Thursday  ;  and  just  coming  home  is  a  confused  time  ; 
but  if  you  can't  come  any  other  time  you  must  e'en  come  then  ; 
for  come  }OU  must.  This  ' gracious  rain '  will  put  the  fish  all  right 
in  a  week,  and  we  might  run  to  Farnham  or  elsewhere,  for  a  day 
(more  I  can't  spare),  to  see  what  a  large  march-brown,  and  a  red  or 
a  golden  palmer  would  do.  I  have  great  hopes  of  fishing  this  spring, 
and  am  organizing  a  series  of  'leaves'  from  everybody  round. 
I  think  I  can  get  eight  or  nine  leaves  for  day's  fishing,  and  eight  or 
nine  days  is  more  than  I  can  take,  for  half  of  them  are  sure  to  be 
16 


24-2  Charles  Kingslcy. 

bright,  or  calm,  or  morning  frosts,  or  soiriething  catawoMpous  and 
inultificative.  How  do  you  stand  towards  'Rev.  Popham '  (as  the 
tradesmen  would  call  him)  ?  I  have  the  promise  of  fishing,  and  a 
bed  with  '  Rev.  John,'  and  would  ask  for  the  fishing  if  you  would 
come  too.  ])Ut  it  wouldn't  be  worth  while  if  we  couldn't  also  do 
Kennet,  or  Lambourne  at  Newbury,  in  our  way  back.  When  does 
your  new  Duke  give  up  Donnington  ?  or  is  it  of  any  use  to  get  a 
■lay  out  of  the  club  on  the  big  river  ?  They  offered  me  one  (least- 
wise the  secretary  did).  Is  there  aught  to  be  killed  in  those  tracks  ? 
Next  Wotton.  I  have  'taken  the  lunars '  (as  the  middies  say)  of 
Wotton  on  the  big  map  of  Surrey,  and  find  it  on  the  Blackwater 
rail,  at  such  distance  that  I  could  leave  my  house  at  seven,  and  see 
the  ghost  of  the  author  of  '  Sylva  '  (delightful  old  gentleman,  too 
t.o  see)  by  nine.  Therefore  I  could  get  there  and  back  in  a  da} 
and  meet  you.  The  fishing  seems  a  chain  of  pondicules  or  pond- 
lets,  fed  by  a  chalk  spring  out  of  Leith  Hill.  As  a  geologist,  1  know 
A'hat  that  ought  to  be.  Leith  Hill  is  900  feet ;  highest  chalk  point, 
save  Inkpen  Beacon,  south  of  Hungerford.  Valley  of  Holmesdale, 
say  500 — a  good  fall,  and  on  chalk  now  and  then,  when  with  a 
gentle  ripple  and  a  clear  burning  sun,  fish  yield  themselves  to  th,=! 
embraces  of  a  little  saucy  march-brown,  or  a  minnow,  and  a  fat 
black  alder,  or  again  a  real  yellow  sally  (which  ain't  yellow,  but 
orange  legs  and  lemon  body,  if  you  can  get  them).  That's  the 
sport ;  to  throw  your  fly,  and  let  it  sink  (never  draw  it),  and  in 
half  a  minute  take  it  out  gently  to  see  if  aught's  at  the  end  of  it, 
and  if  so,  hit  him  as  if  you  loved  him,  and  hold  on.  Therefore  let's 
go  to  Wotton  ;  but  only  for  one  day.  You  must  come  home  with 
me  in  the  evening,  per  Blackwater  rail ;  my  dogcart  will  meet  us 
at  the  station,  and  we  will  start  early  next  morning — whither  ?  I 
think,  to  my  happy  fishing-ground.  We  will  fish  both  streams  ;  and, 
oh.  ni)'  goodness  ! — leastwise  if  we  have  a  sou'wester — all's  in  that 
blessed  sound.  Shelley  was  an  ass  when  he  wrote  his  ode  to  the 
south-west  wind.  He  didn't  know  what  the  dear  old  Zephyros  was 
good  for  ;  who  does,  but  we  the  heirs  of  all  creation,  masters  of 
*  water  the  mother  of  all  tilings  ?  ' 

"As-,  for  going  to  J.  I'aine,  this  is  my  ipsedavit.  Paine  Esquire's 
Sishing  was  good  when  it  was  Paine  Est^uire's  ;  but  since  it  has 
become  clubbate,  clubbified,  or  beclubbed,  it  is  as  a  man  might 
say,  by  too-many-respectable-of-the-town  of- Farnham-gents- continu- 
ally and- with-tliumping-brass-and-other-minuDws-becoopered. 

•'Given  a  strong  May  fly  about  two  days  on,  and  a  warm  sou'- 
wester with  gleams,  you  might  do  the  gun-trick,  for  there  are  M. 
fishes  ;  but  don't  you  desire  that  you  may  obtain  the  said  combina 
tion  of  your  planets  ?  Wheeler  at  Troyle  only  allows  one  rod,  and 
has  not  enough  for  two.  So  /  think  the  happy  fishing-ground  will 
be  the  jilace. 

"What  a  lot  of  nonsense  I  have  writ  !  and  all  about  nothing; 


A  Fishi7ig    Trip.  243 

for  1  shall  see  you,  my  dear  old  fellow,  on  the  26th,  d.v.  But  I  like 
writing  to  you,  and  that's  the  truth  ;  you  are  so  jolly ;  and  most 
people  want  to  make  me  wiser  when  they  write,  as  if  1  hadn't  found 
out  with  Solomon,  that  all  is  vanity  and  vexation. 

4<  d:  4:  4:  ^  4c 

"  Enclosed  is  the  portrait  of  the  gentleman  who  told  Thomaa 
Hughes  that  he  would  fish  at  Wotton  on  Whitmonday,  totally  for- 
getting that  it  was  the  club  day,  and  he  had  the  club  sermon  to 
preach,  and  the  club  dinner  to  eat.  1  am  an  ass,  that  I  am,  as  the 
parson  remarked.  But  Whit  Tuesday  I  can  go ;  therefore,  O 
friend,  forgive,  and  correct  the  consequences  of  my  exceeding 
stupidity,  and  try  to  fix  Whit-Toosday.  Now.  If  you  can  come 
early  on  Friday,  you'll  come  in  for  my  tithe  luncheon,  and  be  in- 
troduced to  some  of  my  jolly  yeomen.  If  you  can  be  here  Mon- 
day, you'll  see  the  club,  and  dine  wi'  em — oh  that  you  would  ! 
They  would  enjoy  it  so — and  then  we  could  start  to  Wotton  simul- 
taneous next  morning. 

"  The  Saturday  fishing  stands  ;  but  this  is  a  black  planet  for  it. 
However,  it'll  change  before  then,  and  how  the  fish  will  feed  when 
the  change  comes.  If  you  get  free,  get  a  few  sized  stone  flies, 
darkish  color,  fine  lot  of  yellow  about  the  tail  ;  also  half  a-dozen 
smallest  governors,  but  with /(?/<?  partridge  wing,  and  pale  honey- 
colored  tail  ;  pheasant  wings  and  orange  tails  are  only  fit  for  cock- 
neys to  catch  dace  with  at  Hampton  Court.  Mind  what  I  say, 
I'll  change  off  a  brace  of  either  from  you  for  any  flies  of  mine  you 
like  ;  also  bring  me  (and  I  will  pay  thee)  i  lb.  avoirdups.  of 
Skinner's  best  Bristol  birdseye.  You  mind  that  last,  or  I'll  send 
you  back  for  it.     Do  you  her  ? 

"  Opes  opens.  The  glass  has  stopped  going  up,  and  is  thinking 
about  going  down.  Wind  has  chopt  from  N.N.W.  to  E.N.E.  {with 
the  sun  which  ain't  as  good  as  against ;  but  may  indicate  a  break 
after  two  or  three  days  of  going  round  with  the  sun,  and  fine 
weather)  evins  grant  !  for  I'm  froze. — Coughing  in  limbo,  and 
every  soul  in  the  parish  in  the  flenzies.  Handkerchers  is  riz  on 
tlie  market  I  guess,  this  last  month. 

"  Mind  your  March  browns — certain  till  the  black  alder  comes 
out,  which  he  won't  here  for  three  weeks,  unless  we  have  a  sudden 
diaiige." 

TO  REV.    F.   D.   MAURICE. 

(Wlio  had  sent  a  Prmphlet  on  the  Sabbath  question.) 

EvERSLEY,  Wednesday,  July,  1856. 

'*  I  have  read  thro  igh  your  pamphlet  forthwith,  and  with  very 
great  delight.  I  canno'  conceive  why  you  should  fancy  that  I 
should  not  agree  M'ith  it ;  for  I  agree  with  every  word.  I  feel  with 
you  that  the  on^^y  ground  on  which  Sunday  amusements  can  bt 


244  Charles  Kingsley. 

really  defended,  is  as  a  carrying  out  of  the  divineness  of  :he  sab 
bath,  and  not  as  a  relaxation  of  it ;  but  I  won't  put  in  bad  words 
to  you  what  you  have  put  in  infinitely  better  ones.  And  as  I  dc 
not  see  how  to  lay  down  the  ground  of  the  sabbath  better  thac 
you  have  done,  so  I  do  not  see  how  to  dogmatize  about  prac- 
tical applications  an}^  farther  t.ian  the  hints  you  have  given.  1 
have  often  fancied  I  should  like  to  see  the  great  useless  naves 
and  aisles  of  our  cathedrals  turned  into  museums  and  wintei 
gardens,  where  people  might  take  their  Sunday  walks,  and  yet 
attend  service ;  but  such  a  plan  could  only  grow  up  of  itself, 
round  a  different  service  than  ours,  or  at  least  round  a  service  in- 
terpreted and  commented  on  by  very  different  preaching  ;  and  till 
the  Tartarus  and  Elysium  superstition,  which  lies  as  really  at  the 
bottom  of  this  question  as  at  the  bottom  of  all,  is  settled,  I  see 
no  hope  for  that.  It  is  you  yourself  who  made  me  feel,  in  that 
paniphlet,  how  the  Tartarus  question  comes  in  here,  too,  by  a  few 
lines  towards  the  bottom  of  p.  15,  ending,  *a  cast-away.'  Those 
lines  have  made  me  see  more  than  1  ever  did,  the  dignity  of  work 
and  rest,  and  their  analogy  with  God's  work  and  rest — so  justify- 
ing all  that  Parker,  Emerson,  or  Carlyle  have  said  about  it,  by 
yutting  it  on  a  ground  which  they  deny.  Yet  if  the  problem  of 
auman  existence  be  to  escape  the  impending  torture — ciiibonol 
Who  need  care  for  rest,  or  work  either,  save  to  keep  the  body  alive 
till  the  soul  is  saved  ?  Till  that  doctrine  vanishes  no  one  will  feel 
any  real  analogy  between  his  life  and  God's  life,  and  will  be  as 
selfish  and  covetous  in  his  work,  and  as  epicurean  in  his  rest,  as 
men  are  now. 

"  It  was  their  ignorance  of  this  dark  superstition,  I  suppose,  which 
enabled  the  old  Jews  to  keep  their  sabbath  (as  they  seem  to  have 
done  from  the  few  hints  we  have)  as  a  day  of 'rejoicing  before  the 
Lord,'  in  attempts  more  or  less  successful  to  consecrate  to  Him 
the  simple  enjoyments  of  life — in  feasting,  singing,  and  dancing. 
'  In  the  midst  go  the  damsels  playing  with  the  timbrels.'  But  this 
would  be  absurd  here^  and  therefore  I  suppose  it  is,  that  the  all- 
wise  Book  keeps  the  practical  details  so  in  the  background,  leaving 
t'a'  h  future  nation  to  actualise  the  sabbath  according  to  its  own 
genius.     1  think  what  you  have  said  on  that  quite  admirable. 

"  Nevertheless,  we  (after  we  are  dead  and  alive  for  evermore) 
fb.ill  see  t\at  conception  carried  out  on  earth. 

In  miglity  lands  beyond  the  sea, 
Wliile  lionor  falls  to  such  as  thee^ 
From  hearts  of  heroes  yet  unborn. 

"  For,  my  dear  master,  though  the  solution  of  this,  and  nianj 
another  pro!jlem  which  you  have  started,  remains  for  our  descend 
ants,  yet  you  must  not  grow  sad,  or  think  that  you  have  not  donf 


Work  for  the  Future.  245 

and  aie  not  still  doing,  a  mighty  work,  in  pointing  out  the  Ia\vs  by 
which  alone  they  can  be  solved.  You  are  like  a  man  surveying  a 
tropic  forest,  which  he  can  only  do  by  hewing  his  jmth  yard  b} 
yard,  unable  to  see  a  rood  before  him  ;  other  men  will  follow  him, 
till,  and  plant,  and  build,  while  he  dies  in  faith,  not  having  received 
the  promises.  And  you  will  look  down  from  heaven  upon  this  na- 
tion working  on  under  the  new  spiritual  impulse  which  you  have 
given  it,  and  which  will  assuredly  conquer,  just  as  Captain  Sturt 
will  look  down  on  that  glorious  Australian  empire  to-be,  which  he 
rescued  out  of  the  realm  of  Hades  and  the  blank  useless  unknown, 
at  the  expense  of  his  health,  his  eyesight,  and  his  life.  As  Charles 
Mansfield,  perhaps,  may  look  down  on  that  Paraguay  which  will 
surely  realise  some  day  his  highest  dreams  of  its  capabilities,  and 
through  him  too  ;  for  his  book  (light  though  it  seem)  will  not  be 
forgotten,  and  other  men  will  carry  out  the  conception,  which  he, 
perhaps,  could  not  have  done  from  over-conscientiousness,  and 
worship  of  too  lofty  an  ideal.  I  can  see,  too,  more  and  more, 
why,  as  you  seem  to  lament,  you  are  shut  out  so  strangely  from 
sympathy  with  flowers  and  beetles  that  you  might  have  sympathy 
with  men.  And  are  they  not  of  more  value  than  many  beetles  ? 
Of  the  evangelical  phraseology  one  word  is  true,  that  '  an  immor- 
tal soul'  (if  people  only  knew  what  an  immortal  soul  meant !)  is  of 
more  value  than  all  the  material  universe.  And  I  can  understand 
why  there  should  be  men  like  you,  to  whom  it  is  said,  '  Thou  shalt 
not  be  tempted  to  waste  thy  time  over  the  visible  world,  because 
thy  calling  is  to  work  out  that  spiritual  moral  world,  of  which  man 
can  learn  just  nothing  from  the  visible  world — which  he  can  only 
learn  from  his  own  soul,  and  the  souls  of  other  men.' 

"  My  dear  master,  I  have  long  ago  found  out  how  little  I  can 
discover  about  God's  absolute  love,  or  absolute  righteousness,  from 
a  universe  in  which  everything  is  eternally  eating  everything  else — 
infinite  cunning  and  shift  (in  the  good  sense).  Infinite  creative 
fancy  it  does  reveal ;  but  nothing  else,  unless  interpreted  by  moral 
laws  which  are  in  oneself  already,  and  in  which  one  has  often  to 
trust  against  all  appearances,  and  cry  out  of  the  lowest  deep  (as  I 
have  had  to  do) — Thou  art  not  Siva  the  destroyer.  Thou  art  not 
even  Ahriman  and  Ormuzd  in  one.  And  yet,  ii  Thou  art  not, 
why  does  Thy  universe  seem  to  say  that  Thou  art  ?  Art  Thou  a 
'  Deus  quidani  Deceptor,'  after  all  ? — No.  There  is  something  in 
me — which  not  nature,  but  Thou  must  have  taught  me — which 
cries  and  will  cry  :  Though  Thou  slay  me,  as  Thou  hast  slain  world 
on  world  already — though  1  and  all  this  glorious  race  of  men  go 
down  to  Hades  with  the  ichthyosaurs  and  the  mammoths,  yet  will 
I  trust  in  Thee.  Though  St.  Peter's  words  be  fulfilled  (as  they 
may  to-morrow  by  the  simplest  physical  laws)  and  the  elements 
melt  with  fervent  heat,  and  the  earth  and  all  the  works  therein  be 
burned  up — yet   I   know  that  my  Redeemer,  He  who  will  justifj 


246  Charles  Kingtley. 

me,  and  make  me  right,  and  deliver  me  out  of  the  grasp  of  nature, 
and  proclaim  my  dominion  over  nature,  liveth,  and  will  stand  af 
the  latter  day  upon  the  earth,  and  in  some  flesh  or  other  1  shall 
see  God,  see  Him  for  myself  as  a  one  and  accountable  moral  being 
for  ever.  But  beetles  and  zoophytes  never  whispered  tliat  to  me. 
Any  more  than  the  study  of  nature  did  to  *  *  *  *  or  to  Cu-."fti 
himself.  It  can  teach  no  moral  theology.  It  may  unteach^  it,  if 
the  roots  of  moral  theology  be  not  already  healthy  and  deep  in  the 
mind.  I  hinted  that  in  '  Glaucus  '  :  but  I  would  do  no  more,  be- 
cause many  readers  mean  by  'moral'  and  'theology'  something 
quite  different  from  what  you  and  I  do,  and  would  have  interpreted 
it  into  a  mere  iteration  of  the  old  lie  that  science  is  dangerous  to 
orthodoxy. 

"But  I  won't  talk  of  myself,  save  to  say  that  I  sometimes  envy 
you,  who  are  not  distracted  from  work  at  the  really  human  truths, 
by  the  number  of  joints  in  a  grub's  legs.  I  have  been  longing  to 
hear  from  you  ;  and  I  ought  to  have  written  to  you,  but  had  noth- 
ing to  say.  My  life  runs  on  here  in  a  very  simple,  easy  way,  what 
with  the  parish  and  Mrs.  Kingsley,  and  the  children,  and  a  little 
literary  work,  in  which  I  am  trying  to  express  in  a  new  form  the 
ideas  which  I  have  got  from  you,  and  which  I  have  been  trying  to 
translate  into  all  languages,  from  '  The  Saint's  Tragedy'  to  '  Glau- 
cu,').'     I  have  no  other  work  on  earth,  and  want  none. 

to  tom  hughes,  esq. 

eversley,  1856. 
*'My  Dear  Old  Lad, — 

"  Fronde  cannot  go  with  us ;  so  are  you  willing  to  go  to  Snow- 
don  ?  Killarney  is  finer,  I  know,  and  there  are  saumons  ;  but  there 
are  saumons  in  Snowdon — I  know  where,  and  we  may  have  them 
in  August  if  we  be  canny.  I'll  show  you  a  rock  where  you  are 
sure  of  one.  And  I  want  to  go  there,  for  several  reasons  ;  but 
Killarney  is  very  tempting  ;  only,  as  I  get  old,  somehow,  I  don't 
like  new  places  ;  I  like  to  thumb  over  the  same  book,  and  trot  over 
the  same  bog,  and  feel  'homey'  wherever  I  be. 

"  Now,  if  so  be  as  we  go  to  Snowdon,  there  is  our  tracks,  &c 
Buy  the  two  sheets  of  the  Ordnance  Maps  (I'll  go  share  in  pence), 
which  comprises  the  country  from  Aber  and  Bangor  north,  to  Port 
Madoc,  and  Festiniog  south.  Consider,  behold,  and  perpend  ; 
then  send  'em  on  to  me,  in  the  coat  pocket  of  one  Hughes,  Esq., 
from  a  Saturday  night  to  a  Monday  morning,  and  we  will  talk  it 
out.     My  plan  would  be  this — 

There  is  no  inn  in  Snowdon  which  is  not  awful  dear, 
Excepting  Pen-y-gwrydd  (you  can't  pronounce  it,  dear),  . 

Which  standetli  in  the  meeting  of  noble  valleys  three. 
One  is  the  vale  of  Gwynant,  so  well  beloved  by  me, 


To7)i    Taylor  in  the  Fishing  Party.      247 

One  gf)es  to  Capel-Curig,  and  I  can't  mind  its  name, 

And  one  it  is  Llanberris  Pass,  which  all  men  knows  tlie  same. 

Between  wliich  radiations  vast  mountains  does  arise, 

As  full  of  tarns  as  sieves  of  holes,  in  which  big  fish  will  rise, 

That  is,  just  one  day  in  the  year,  if  you  be  there,  my  boy, 

About  ten  o'clock  at  night,  and  then  I  wish  you  joy. 

Now  to  this  Pen-y-gwrydd  inn  I  purposeth  to  write. 

(Axing  thy  post  town  out  of  Froude,  for  I  can't  mind  it  quite). 

And  to  engage  a  room  or  two,  for  let  us  say  a  week, 

For  fear  of  gents,  and  Manichees,  and  reading  parties  meek. 

And  there  to  live  like  fighting-cocks  at  almost  a  bob  a  day, 

And  artervvards  toward  the  sea  make  tracks  and  cut  away, 

All  for  to  catch  the  salmon  bold  in  Aberglaslyn  pool. 

And  work  the  flats  in  Traeth-Mawr,  and  will,  or  I'm  a  fool. 

And  that's  my  game,  which,  if  you  like,  respond  to  me  by  post ; 

But  I  fear  it  will  not  last,  my  son,  a  thirteen  days  at  most. 

flies  is  no  object ;  I  can  tell  some  three  or  four  will  do, 

And  John  Jones,  Clerk,  he  knows  the  rest,  and  ties  and  sells  'em  too. 

Besides  of  which  I  have  no  more  to  say,  leastwise  just  now, 

And  so,  goes  to  my  childixn's  school  and  umbly  makes  my  bow. 

"C.  K  '• 

TO  THE  SAME. 

EVERSLEY,   1S56. 

'*  Of  all  men  on  earth  I  should  like  to  have  Tom  Taylor  for  a 
third.  Entreat  him  to  make  it  possible,  and  come  and  be  a  sal- 
vidge  man  with  us ;  and  tell  him  I  can  show  him  views  of  the  big 
stone  work  which  no  mortal  cockney  knows,  because,  though  the 
whole  earth  is  given  to  the  children  of  men,  none  but  we  jolly 
fishers  get  the  plums  and  raisins  of  it,  by  the  rivers  which  run  among 
the  hills,  and  the  lakes  which  sit  a-top  thereof  Tell  him  I'll  show 
him  such  a  view  from  Craig-y-Rhaidyr  of  Snowdon  from  the  sole  of 
his  foot  to  the  crown  of  his  head,  as  tourist  never  saw,  nor  will  see, 
case  why,  he  can't  find  it ;  and  I  will  show  him  the  original  mouth 
of  the  pit,  which  is  Llyn  Dulyn.  and  the  lightning  lake,  where  the 
white  syenite  is  blasted  into  shivers,  which  make  you  shiver,  if  you 
he  sentimental — but  /  only  think  of  the  trouts — which  the  last  I 
saw  killed  in  Llyn  Melch  was  t,^  pounds,  and  we'll  kill  his  wife  and 
family;  and  crow-berry  and  desolate  Alpine  plants  grow  theieby, 
and  we  will  sleep  among  them,  like  love  among  the  roses,  Thomas. 
And  oh,  what  won't  we  do,  except  break  our  necks?  and  I'll  make 
Tom  Taylor  come  down  over  Craig-y-Rhaidyr,  which  is  700  feet  of 
syenite,  the  most  glorious  climb  I  know,  and  the  original  short-cut 
to  Ludlow  at  Festiniog ;  but  wouldn't  do  on  a  hot  day,  or  a  dark 
night. 

"  I  think  you  ought  to  come  to  me  Saturday  night,  Strettel  will 


248  Charles  Kings  ley. 

be  here ;  but  I'll  get  )'0u  a  bed  in  the  village.  We  should  go  tc 
Reading  by  the  5.30  train,  which  will  get  us  to  Wolverhampton, 
8. 35,  and  there  wait  for  the  Holyhead  mail  at  12.44,  which  will 
drop  us  at  Bangor  at  5  in  the  morning.  There  we  can  either  go 
on  by  coach  to  Pen-y-Wynod,  or  walk  on  in  the  cool  of  the  morn- 
ing, fishing  as  we  go,  and  send  our  traps  by  coach,  to  be  dropped 
for  us.  Pray  bring  a  couple  of  dozen  moderate  lake-sized  hooks, 
to  tie  flies  on,  for  I  am  out  of  hooks,  except  the  very  biggest  size, 
salmon-peel  size,  in  fact. 

"You'll  be  pleased  to  hear  that  I  got  a  fishing  at  Lady  Mild- 
may's  famous  Warnborough  preserve  last  night — the  day  was  B.  B. 
B,,  burning,  baking,  and  boiling,  and  as  still  as  glass,  so  I  did  not 
tackle-to  till  5.30 — and  between  that  and  nine  I  grassed  twenty  fish, 
weighing  twenty-two  pounds,  besides  losing  a  brace  more  whoppers. 
Biggest  brate  killed,  three  pounds  and  two  pounds — a  dead  bright 
calm,  and  a  clear  stream — in  fifteen  minutes  I  had  three  fish,  two  of 
three  pounds  and  one  of  two  pounds,  but  lost  one  of  them  after  a 
long  fight.     Not  so  shady,  Tom,  for  alt  oti  shorm-fly  and  caperer. 

"  Mind  and  don't  get  those  flies  too  small.  A  size  larger  than 
what  I  said  would  be  no  harm,  but  I  don't  mind  small  hooks,  if  a 
big  fly  be  tied  thereon — see  what  a  difference  a  wise  man  and  a  fool 
may  make.  (Here  was  a  sketch  of  two  flies — 'wise  men's  fly,'  and 
'cockney  maiden's  fly.')  Let's  have  lots  for  our  money,  say  I,  in 
flies,  as  in  all  things.  Why  do  fish  take  your  caperer,  spite  of  his 
ugUness,  but  because  he  looks  the  fattest  one  they  ever  saw  yet  ? 
Think  over  these  things, 

"  Poor  dear  Charles's  *  book  has  come  at  last.  I  think  it  perfect. 
Tell  Ludlow  he  was  quite  right  in  altering  as  little  as  possible,  and 
that  I  am  to  review  it  in  *  Fraser's.'  The  'Saturday'  has  already 
got  a  review  in  hand." 

At  last  the  happy  day  in  August  was  fixed,  and  the  foUoving 
inyitation  sent  befcre  the  three  friends  started  for  Snowdonia  : 

THE  INVITATION. 

Come  away  with  me,  Tom, 
Term  and  talk  is  done ; 
My  poor  lads  are  reaping. 
Busy  every  one. 
Curates  mind  the  parish, 
Sweepers  mind  the  Court, 
We'll  away  to  Snowdon 
For  our  ten  days'  sport, 
Fish  the  August  evening 
Till  the  eve  is  past, 

"  Letters  from  Paraguay,  by  Charles  Blachford  Mansfield." 


The  Invitation.  \ASi 

Whoop  like  boys  at  pounderi 
Fairly  played  and  grassed. 
When  they  cease  to  dimple. 
Lunge,  and  swerve,  and  leap^ 
Then  up  over  Siabod, 
Choose  our  nest,  and  sleep. 
Up  a  thousand  feet,  Tom, 
Round  the  lion's  head, 
Find  soft  stones  to  leeward 
And  make  up  our  bed. 
Eat  our  bread  and  bacon, 
Smoke  the  pipe  of  peace. 
And,  ere  we  be  drowsy. 
Give  our  boots  a  grease. 
Homer's  heroes  did  so. 
Why  not  such  as  we  ? 
What  are  sheets  and  servants? 
Superfluity. 

Pray  for  wives  and  children 
Safe  in  slumber  curled, 
Then  to  chat  till  midnight 
O'er  this  babbling  world. 
Of  the  workmen's  college, 
Of  the  price  of  grain. 
Of  the  tree  of  knowledge, 
Of  the  chance  of  rain  ; 
If  Sir  A.  goes  Romeward, 
If  Miss  B.  sings  true, 
If  the  fleet  comes  homeward. 
If  the  mare  will  do, — 
Anything  and  everything — 
Up  there  in  the  sky 
Angels  understand  us, 
And  no  "  saints  "  are  by. 
Down,  and  bathe  at  day-dawa. 
Tramp  from  lake  to  lake. 
Washing  brain  and  heart  clcta 
Every  step  we  take. 
Leave  to  Robert  Browning 
Beggars,  fleas,  and  vines  ; 
Leave  to  mournful  Ruskin 
Popish  Apennines, 
Dirty  Stones  of  Venice 
And  his  Gas-lamps  Seven  5 
We've  the  stones  of  Snowdon 
\nd  the  lamps  of  heaven. 


a(5C  Charles  Kingsiey, 


Where' s  the  mighty  credit 

In  admiring  Alps  ? 

Any  goose  sees  "  glory  " 

In  tiieir  "  snovvy  scalps." 

Leave  such  signs  and  wonden 

For  the  dullard  brain, 

As  aesthetic  brandy, 

Opium  and  cayenne ; 

Give  me  Bramshill  common 

(St.  John's  harriers  by). 

Or  the  vale  of  Windsor, 

England's  golden  eye. 

Show  me  life  and  progress, 

Beauty,  health,  and  man  ; 

Houses  fair,  trim  gardens. 

Turn  where'er  I  can. 

Or,  if  bored  with  "  High  Art," 

And  such  popish  stuff, 

One's  poor  ear  need  airing, 

Snowdon's  high  enough. 

While  we  find  God's  signet 

Fresh  on  Englisli  ground. 

Why  go  gallivanting 

With  the  nations  round? 

Though  we  try  no  ventures 

Desperate  or  strange  ; 

Feed  on  common-places 

In  a  narrow  range  ; 

Never  sought  for  Franklin 

Round  the  frozen  Capes  : 

Even,  with  Macdougall,* 

Bagged  our  brace  of  apes  ; 

Never  had  our  chance,  Tom, 

In  that  black  Redan ; 

Can't  avenge  poor  Brereton 

Out  in  Sakarran  ; 

Tho'  we  earn  our  bread,  Tom, 

i5y  the  dirty  pen, 

Wliat  we  can  we  will  be. 

Honest  Englislimen. 

Do  the  work  that's  nearest. 

Though  it's  dull  at  whiles. 

Helping,  when  we  meet  them. 

Lame  dogs  over  stiles; 


*  Bishop  of  Labuan, 


Sn  owdonia.  1 5 1 

See  ill  every  hedgerow 
Marks  of  angels'  feet, 
Epics  in  each  pebble 
Underneath  our  feet ; 
Once  a  year,  like  schoolV  o/s, 
Robin-Hooding  go, 
Leaving  fops  and  fogies 
A  thousand  feet  below. 

On  the  iitf  of  August  they  started,  and  in  the  train  he  vmles 
h<Mne. 

"  A  glorious  day.  Snowdonia  magnificent.  The  sensation  of 
going  through  the  tubular  bridge  very  awful  and  instructive.  The 
sound  of  it,  the  finest  bass  note  I  have  ever  heard.  Anglesey,  an 
ugly  wild  flat  place,  like  Torridge  Moors,  with  great  dunes  of  blown 
sand  along  the  coast,  fit  for  those  weird  old  Druids " 

Pen-y-gwryd. 

"  I  have  had,  as  far  as  scenery  is  concerned,  the  finest  day  I  ever 
had.  We  started  for  Edno  at  lo,  but  did  not  find  it  till  2,  because 
we  mistook  the  directions,  and  walked  from  to  till  1.30  over  a 
Steinerer  Maar,  a  sea  of  syenite  and  metamorphic  slate  which 
bafties  all  description,  2,000  ft.  above  Gwynant,  ribs  and  peaks 
and  walls  of  rock  leaping  up  and  rushing  down,  average  50  to  100 
ft.,  covered  with  fir,  club  moss,  crowberry  and  bearberry,  and  ling, 
of  course.  Over  these  we  had  to  scramble  up  and  down,  beating 
for  Edno  lake  as  you  would  beat  for  a  partridge,  but  in  vain.  All 
we  found  was  one  old  cock  grouse,  who  went  off  hollowing  '  Cock- 
cock-what-a-shame  cock-cock'  till  we  were  fairly  beat.  In  despair 
we  made,  not  a  dash,  but  a  crawl,  at  Moel  Meirch  ('  Margaret's 
Peak,'  some  pathetic  story  I  suppose),  which  rises  about  100  ft. 
above  the  stony  sea,  a  smooth  pyramid  of  sandy-pink  syenite. 
Hughes  got  up  first,  by  a  crack,  for  the  walls  are  like  china,  and 
gave  a  who-vvhoop  ;  there  was  Edno  half  a  mile  beyond,  and  only 
a  valley  as  deep  as  from  Finchc.mpstead  church  to  the  river  to 
cross,  besides  a  few  climbs  of  50  ft.  So  there  we  got,  and  eat  oui 
hard  boiled  eggs  and  drank  our  teer,  and  then  set  to,  and  caught 
juat  nothing.  The  fish,  always  sulky  and  capricious,  would  not 
stir.  But  the  delight  of  being  there  again,  2,200  ft.  up,  out  of  the 
sound  of  aught  but  the  rus'i  of  wind  and  water  and  the  whistle  of 
the  sheep  (which  is  just  Uke  a  penny  whistle  ill-blown),  and  finding 
oneself  at  home  there  !     Every  rock,  even  the  steps  of  slate  and 

footholds   of  grass  which  and   I  used  to  use,  just  the  same. 

Unchanged  for  ever.     It  is  an  awful  thought.     Soon  we  found  oul 
why  the  iish  wnuldu'f  rise.     The  cloud  which  had  been  hanging  on 


252  Charles  Kings  ley. 

Snowdon,  lowered.  Hebog  and  Cnicht  caught  it.  It  began  tc 
roll  up  from  the  sea  in  great  cabbage-headed  masses,  grew  as  dark 
as  twilight.  The  wind  rolled  the  lake  into  foam  ;  we  staggered 
back  to  an  old  cave,  where  we  shall  sleep,  please  God,  ere  we 
come  home,  and  then  the  cloud  lowered,  the  lake  racing  along  in 
fantastic  flakes  and  heaps  of  white  steam  hiding  everything  50 
yards  olit"  one  minute,  then  leaving  all  clear  and  sharp-cut  pink  and 
green.  While  out  of  it  came  a  rain  of  marbles  and  Minie  bullet; 
— a  rain  which  searches,  and  drenches,  and  drills.  Luckily  I  had 
on  a  flannel  shirt.  We  waited  as  long  as  we  dared,  and  then 
steered  home  by  compass,  for  we  could  not  see  50  yards,  except 
great  rows  of  giants  in  the  fog,  sitting  humped  up  side  by  side,  like 
the  ghosts  of  the  sons  of  Anak  staring  into  the  bogs.  So  home  we 
went,  floundering  through  morass  and  scrambling  up  and  down  the 
giants,  which  were  crags  50  to  100  feet  high,  for  we  dared  not  pick 
our  road  for  fear  of  losing  our  bearings  by  compass.  And  we  were 
wet — oh,  were  we  not  wet  ?  but,  as  a  make-weight,  we  found  the 
*  Grass  of  Parnassus  *  in  plenty,  and  as  we  coasted  the  vale  of 
Gwynant,  1,500  ft.  up,  the  sight  of  Snowdon,  sometimes  through 
great  gaps  of  cloud,  sometimes  altogether  hidden,  the  lights  upon 
that  glorious  vista  of  Gwynant  and  Dinas,  right  down  to  Hebog^ 
the  flakes  of  cloud  rushing  up  the  vale  of  Gwynant  far  below  us — 
no  tongue  can  describe  it.  I  could  see  Fronde's  fir-wood,  and 
home  close,  quite  plain  from  Moel  Meirch.  It  looked  as  if  }"Ou 
could  have  sent  a  stone  into  it,  but  it  was  four  miles  off.  I  have 
got  for  you  grass  of  Parnassus  ;  Alpine  club-moss  ;  ladies'  mantle  ; 
ivy-leaved  campanula ;  beech  fern  ;  A.  Oreopteris  (sweet  fern). 

'*  The  great  butterwort  is  out  of  flower  (as  is  the  globe  flower), 
but  it  stars  every  bog  with  its  shiny  yellow-green  stars  of  leaves. 
Good  bye.  I  am  up  at  half-past  three  for  Gwynant,  which  is  full 
of  salmon. 

"  P.S. — I  have  just  got  your  dear  letter.  Tell  Rose  that  I  am 
drying  all  the  plants  I  can  for  her.  .  .  .  Tell  Maurice  I  saw 
a  grouse  and  a  water-ouzel — lots  of  these  last.     .     .     ." 

When  the  brief  holiday  came  to  an  end,  the  three  friends  were 
asked  by  the  landlord  of  the  inn,  at  Pen-y-gwryd,  to  write  theii 
names  in  his  visitors'  book.  The  following  verses  were  speedily 
composed,  and  though  the  autographs  have  been  cut  ou.t  of  the 
book  by  some  tourist  the  lines  were  preserved  : 

.^  TOM  TAYLOR. 

I  came  to  Pen-y-gwryd  with  colors  armed  and  pencils, 
But  found  no  use  whatever  for  any  such  utensils  ; 
So  in  default  of  them  I  took  to  using  knives  and  forks, 
And  made  successful  driwings— of  Mrs.  Owen's  cork^ 


Visitors    Book  at  Peu-y-gwryd.  253 

CHARLES  KINGSLEY. 
I  came  to  Pen-y-gwryd  in  frantic  hopes  of  slaying 

Grilse,  Salmon,  3  lb.  red-fleshed  Trout,  and  what  else  there's  no  saying; 
But  bitter  coM  and  lashing  rain,  and  black  nor'eastern  skies,  sir. 
Drove  me  from  fish  to  botany,  a  sadder  man  and  wiser. 

TOM  HUGHES, 
I  came  to  Pen-y-gwryd  a  larking  with  my  betters, 
A  mad  wag  and  a  mad  poet,  both  of  them  men  of  letters ; 
Which  two  ungrateful  parties  after  all  the  care  I've  took 
Of  them,  make  me  write  verses  in  Henry  Owen's  book. 

T.  T. 
We've  been  mist-soak'd  on  Snowdon,  mist-soak'd  on  Glyder  Vawr, 
We've  been  wet  through  on  an  average  every  day  three  times  an  hour ; 
We've  walk'd  the  upper  leathers  from  the  soles  of  our  balmorals  ; 
And  as  sketchers  and  as  fishers  with  the  weather  have  had  our  quarrels. 

C.  K. 

But  think  just  of  the  plants  which  stuff 'd  our  box,  (old  Yarrel's  gift,) 
And  of  those  wliich  might  have  stuff'd  it  if  the  clouds  had  given  a  lift  : 
Of  tramping  bogs,  and  climbing  cliiTs,  and  shoving  down  stone  fences 
For  Spidervvort,  Saussurea,  and  Woodsia  ilvensis. 

T.  H. 

Oh  my  dear  namesake's  breeches,  you  never  see  the  like. 
He  burst  them  all  so  shameful  a  crossing  of  a  dyke. 
But  Mrs.  Owen  patch'd  them  as  careful  as  a  mother. 
With  flannel  of  three  colors — she  hadn't  got  no  other. 

T.  T. 

But  can  we  say  enough  of  those  legs  of  mountain  muttons. 

And  that  onion  sauce  lies  on  our  souls,  for  it  made  of  us  three  gluttons  ? 

And  the  Dublin  stout  is  genuine,  and  so's  the  Burton  beer  ; 

And  the  apple  tarts  they've  won  our  hearts,  and  think  of  soufflets  here  J 

C.  K. 

Resembling  that  old  woman  that  never  could  be  quiet. 
Though  victuals  (says  tlie  child's  song)  and  drink  formed  all  their  diet  ; 
My  love  for  plants  and  scrambling  shared  empire  with  my  dinner, 
And  who  says  it  wasn't  good  must  be  a  most  fastidious  sinner. 

T.  H. 

Njw  all  I've  got  to  say  is,  you  can't  be  better  treated  ; 

Order  pancakes  and  you'll  find  they're  the  best  you  ever  eated. 

If  you  scramble  o'er  the  mountains  y  ou  should  bring  ar  ordnance  '3',»n ; 

[  endorse  all  as  pievious  gents  have  said  about  the  tap. 


254  Charles  Kings  ley. 

T.  T. 

Peii-y-gwryd,  when  wet  and  worn  has  kept  a  warm  fireside  foi  us. 
Socks,  boots,  and  never-mention-ems,  Mrs.  Owen  still  has  dried  for  ui ; 
With  host  and  hostess,  fare  and  bill  so  pleased  we  are  that  goings 
We  feel  for  all  their  kindness,  'tis  we  not  they  are  Owen  I 

T.  H.     T.  T.     C.  X. 

Nos  tres  in  uno  juncti  hos  fesimus  versiculos ; 
Tomas  piscator  pisces  qui  non  cepi  sed  pisciculos, 
Tomas  sciagraphus,  sketches  qui  non  feci  nisi  ridiculos, 
Herbarius  Carolus  montes  qui  lustravi  perpendiculos. 

T.  H. 

There's  big  trout  I  hear  in  Edno,  likewise  in  Gwynant  lake, 
And  the  governor  and  black  alder  are  the  flies  that  they  will  take. 
Also  the  cockabundy,  but  I  can  only  say, 
If  you  think  to  catch  big  fishes  I  only  Hope  you  may. 

T.  T. 
I  have  come  in  for  more  of  mountain  gloom  than  mountain  glory, 
But  I've  seen  old  Snowdon  rear  his  head  with  storm-tossed  mist  wreaths  ; 
I  stood  in  the  fight  of  mountain  winds  upon  Bwlch-Cwm-y-Llan, 
And  I  go  back  an  unsketching  but  a  better  minded  man. 

C.  K. 

And  I  too  have  another  debt  to  pay  another  way. 

For  Kindness  shown  by  these  good  souls  to  one  who's  far  away, 

Even  to  this  old  colly  dog  who  tracked  the  mountains  o'er. 

For  one  who  seeks  strange  birds  and  flowers  on  far  Australia's  shore. 

Ill  the  cotirse  of  the  autumn  several  American  friends  came  and 
»vent  :  one  from  the  Southerr.  States,  thus  recalls  his  visit  and  the 
Rectory  life  at  Eversley  in  1856  : 

** .  .  .  It  is  your  own  fault  if  Eversley  does  no  more  seem  to 
me  a  name.  When  I  think  of  Mrs.  Kingsley  and  of  you  I  seem  to 
myself  to  be  sitting  with  you  still  in  those  quaint  old  rooms.  Stil 
Maurice  comes  by  with  an  insect  or  a  flower,  or  just  a  general 
wonder  and  life  in  his  eyes— still  I  hear  the  merry  laugh  of  the  little 
Princess,  and  see  Dandy  lying  lazy,  smiling  and  winking  in  the  sun  ; 
and  I  fill  my  olive-wood  pipe,  and  saunter  in  and  out  of  the  aroma- 
tic old  sludy  and  lounge,  a  new  man  and  a  happier  one,  on  the 
sloping  green  lawn,  under  the  good  old  fir-trees.  And  so  I  talk  on 
as  if  I  Avere  with  friends  long  known,  and  known  long  to  be 
cherished  much.  All  of  which  is  wholly  your  fault  and  Mrs.  Kings- 
ley'?;.      .  If  you  are  not  too  busy,  I  am  sure  you  will  write 


Preface  to   Taulers  Sermons.  255 

and  tell  me  how  the  novel  advances  (Two  Years  Ago  ! ),  and  how 
Kversley  in  all  its  regions  is.     .     .     ." 

TO    FRANCIS    RUSSELL,    ESQ. 

EVERSLEf,  1856. 

**  I  am  horror-struck.     Mrs.   Kinesley   declares    I    have   nevei 

answered  your  letter The  \  erpetual  variety  of  work 

wLich  I  have  been  in  must  be  my  excuse  if  I  am  guilty.  To-day, 
however,  I  have  no  excuse  of  work,  being  idle,  from  having  been 
rolled  into  a  pancake  yesterday  by  a  horse,  who  lay  on  me  for  five 
pleasant  minutes  at  the  bottom  of  a  ditch.  We  were  delighted  with 
the  Parnassia,  and  astonished  at  your  knack  of  drying.  I  never  saw 
flowers  dried  so  well.  As  for  the  vivarium,  everything  and  all 
information,  is  to  be  got  from  a  man  named  A.  Lloyd,  21,  Portland 
Road.  But  if  your  friend  be  at  Edinburgh,  an  hour's  work  at  lov\ 
lide  at  the  back  of  Musselburgh  pier  will  give  him  all  that  is  wanted 
and  the  hints  in  'Glaucus'  ought  to  be  enough  as  to  preserving 
them  alive.  I  have  no  news  to  tell  you.  I  work  in  the  parish  and 
write,  and  seldom  get  out  to  kill  a  great  pike  or  two.  Such  an 
autumn  I  never  remember.  All  our  summer  gardens  are  still  un- 
touched by  frost,  and  the  country  looks  as  it  did  in  June. 

"What  do  you  think  of  the  peace  prospects  ?  France  bankrupt ; 
the  Emperor's  life  not  worth  two  years'  purchase.  Russia  bullying 
as  badly  as  ever,  and  Italy  at  a  dead-lock.  I  give  the  peace  two 
years  to  live.     Will  it  live  one  ?     Ought  it  to  live  one?  " 

Mr.  Kingsley  having  been  asked  to  write  a  preface  to  Tauler's 
Life,  now  writes  to  Miss  Winkworth. 

EvERSLEY,  August  8,  1856. 

"  I  shall  be  most  happy  to  write  the  preface  to  Tauler's  Sermons. 
Believe  me,  I  have  no  fear  of  Pantheism  in  Tauler.  I  shaP  be 
delighted  to  do  all  I  can  to  spread  your  translation.  Believe  me, 
you  will  be  doing  a  good  work  ;  may  it  prosper  !  I  need  not  say, 
remember  me  most  affectionately  to  Chevalier  Bunsen,  and  tha."*li: 
him  (ought  I  not  to  thank  you  too  ?)  for  the  'Signs  of  the  Times, 

which  has  taught  me  much You  will  be  glad  to  hear, 

I  am  sure,  that  your  'Theologia'  is  being  valued  by  every  one  to 
whom  I  have  recommended  it,  and  I  have  more  hope  of  Tauler, 
l)ecause,  as  I  suppose,  lie  is  more  like  the  teaching  (in  form)  to 
which  the  many  have  been  accustomed,  and  which  they  can  under- 
stand. 1  would  certainly  leave  out  the  Romanist  passages  ;  I  am 
sure  that  they  are  really  only  excrescences,  which  have  nothing  to 
do  with  the  real  bone  and  muscle  of  his  or  any  man's  soul ;  and  if 
you  do  not  omit  them,  your  chance  of  a  hearing  is  gone 


256 


Charles  Kings  ley. 


Afy  hope  is  that  the  Evangelicals  will  read  Tauler  even  t.hougk  they 
may  shrink  from  the  '  Theologia.'  " 

The  preface  was  written  with  great  diffidence.  Like  the  preface 
to  the  "  Theologia,"  'J:  goes  down  into  the  deep  things  of  God,  and 
is  worthy  of  its  subjei,  ; — especially  the  passages  on  the  Mystics. 


THX   GREAT   FIR-TREES   ON   THE   RECTORY   LAWN   AT  fl  ''ERSLEY. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

>"he  Father  in  his  Home— An  Atmosphere  of  Joy- -The  Out-door  Nurseiy-- 
Life  on  the  Mount — Fear  and  Falsehood — The  Training  of  Lo\e — Favoriiea 
and  Friends  in  the  House,  in  the  Stable,  and  on  the  Lawn. 

"  Cheerfulness  or  joyousness,"  said  Jean  Paul,  in  his  '  Levana, 
or  the  Doctrine  of  Education,'  '*  is  the  heaven  under  which  every- 
thing but  poison  thrives.  All  new-born  creatures  require  warmth, 
and  what  then  is  warmth  to  the  human  chicken  but  happiness  ? 
One  has  but  to  give  them  play-room  by  taking  away  what  may  be 
painful,  and  their  powers  shoot  up  of  themselves.  The  joyousness 
of  children !  Should  they  have  anything  else  ?  I  can  endure  a 
melancholy  man,  but  not  a  melancholy  child  ! "  * 

And  with  this  atmosphere  of  joyousness  the  parents  tried  to  sur- 
round the  children  at  the  Rectory,  and  that  not  only  as  a  means  of 
present  enjoyment,  but  as  a  tonic  to  strengthen  the  young  crea- 
tures to  meet  the  inevitable  trials  of  the  future.  We  must  pause  a 
moment  in  the  midst  of  the  father's  work  and  letters  ;  we  have  seen 
iiim  in  his  church  and  parish,  and  now  must  see  him  in  his  home, 
where  his  children  had  the  best  of  everything ;  the  sunniest  and 
largest  rooms  indoors,  and  because  the  Rectory  was  on  low  ground, 
— the  churchyard  six  feet  above  the  living  rooms,  and  the  ground 
sloping  upwards  on  three  sides, — he  built  them  a  hut  for  an  out- 
door nursery,  on  the  "Mount,"  where  they  kept  books,  toys,  and 
tea-things,  spending  long  happy  days  on  the  highest  and  loveliest 
point  of  moorland  in  the  glebe,  a  real  bit  of  primeval  forest ;  and 
there  he  would  join  them  when  his  parish  work  was  done,  bringing 
them  some  fresh  treasure  picked  up  in  his  walk,  a  choice  wild 
flower  or  fern,  or  rare  beetle,  sometimes  a  lizard  or  a  field-mouse  ; 
evei  waking  up  their  sense  of  wonder,  calling  out  their  powers  of 
observation,  and  teaching  them  lessons  out  of  God's  great  green 
book  without  their  knowing  they  were  learning. 

And  then  the  Sundays,  the  hardest  day  of  the  week  to  him,  were 
bright  to  the  children,  who  began  the  day  with  decking  the  graves 


"  I^vana,  or  the  Doctrine  of  Education,"  chap.  2. 
17 


258  Charles  Kiiigsley. 

in  the  dear  chuichyard,  a;i  example  which  the  poor  people  learnj 
to  follow,  so  that  before  Morning  Service  it  looked  like  a  flowei 
garden  ;  and  w'  en  his  day's  work  was  done,  however  weary  he 
might  be,  thei :  /vas  always  the  Sunday  walk,  a  stroll  on  the  moor, 
and  some  fresh  object  of  natural  beauty  pointed  out  at  every  step. 
Ind  )ors,  the  Sunday  picture  books  were  brought  out.  Each  child 
had  its  own,  and  chose  its  subject  for  the  father  to  draw,  either 
some  Bible  story,  or  bird,  beast,  or  flower  mentioned  in  Scripture. 
Happy  Sundays  !  never  associated  with  gloom  or  restrictions,  but 
with  God's  works  as  well  as  His  word,  and  with  sermons  that  never 
wearied. 

Punishment  was  a  word  little  known  in  his  house.  Corporal 
punishment  was  never  allowed.  His  own  childish  experience  of 
the  sense  of  degradation  and  unhealthy  fear  it  produced,  of  the 
antagonism  it  called  out  between  a  child  and  its  parents,  a  pupil 
and  its  teachers,  gave  him  a  horror  of  it.  It  had  other  evils,  too, 
he  considered,  besides  degrading  both  parties  concerned.  "  More 
than  half  the  lying  of  children,"  he  said,  "is,  I  believe,  the  result 
of  fear,  and  the  fear  of  punishment."  On  these  grounds  he  made 
it  a  rule  (from  which  he  never  departed,)  not  to  take  a  child,  sus- 
pected of  a  fault,  at  unawares,  by  sudden  question  or  hasty  accu- 
sation, the  stronger  thus  taking  an  unfair  advantage  of  the  weaker 
and  defenceless  creature,  who,  in  the  mere  confusion  of  the  mo- 
ment, might  be  tempted  to  deny  or  equivocate.  "  Do  we  not  pray 
daily,  '  Lord,  confound  me  not,'  and  shall  we  dare  to  confound  our 
Dwn  children  by  sudden  accusation,  suspicious  anger,  making  them 
give  evidence  against  themselves,  when  we  don't  allow  a  ciiminal 
to  do  that  in  a  court  of  law  ?  The  finer  the  nature  the  more  easily 
is  it  confounded,  whether  it  be  of  child,  dog,  or  horse.  It  breaks 
all  confidence  between  parent  and  child."  "Do  not  train  a  child," 
he  said  to  a  friend,  "  as  men  train  a  horse,  by  letting  anger  and 
punishment  be  \}:\q  first  announcement  of  his  having  sinned.  If 
you  do,  you  induce  two  bad  habits  ;  first,  the  boy  regards  hu 
parent  with  a  kind  of  blind  dread,  as  a  being  who  may  be  offended 
by  actions  which  to  him  are  innocent,  and  whose  wrath  he  expects 
to  fall  upon  him  any  moment  in  his  most  pure  and  unselfish  happi- 
ness. Alas  !  for  such  a  childhood  !  EiSws  Ae'yw !  Next,  and  worst 
still,  the  boy  learns  not  to  fear  sin,  but  the  ptinishment  of  it,  and 
thus  he  learns  to  lie.     At  every  first  fault  and  offence  too,  teacb 


The  Father  in  His  Home.  259 

him  the  pnnciple  which  makes  it  sinful — illustrate  it  by  a  familial 
parable — and  then,  if  he  sins  again  it  will  be  with  his  eyes  open  !  " 
He  was  careful,  too,  not  to  confuse  or  "confound"  his  childicn 
by  a  multiplicity  of  small  rules.  Certain  broad,  distinct  laws  ol 
conduct  were  laid  down.  "  It  is  difficult  enough  to  keep  the  Tei) 
Commandments,"  he  would  say,  "without  making  an  eleventh  in 
every  direction."  This,  combined  with  his  equable  rule,  gave  them 
a  sense  of  utter  confidence  and  perfect  freedom  with  him.  Th<;y 
knew  what  they  were  about  and  where  to  find  him,  for  he  had 
no  "moods"  with  them,  and  if  they  had,  he  could  be  pitiful  and 
patient. 

Like  a  brave  man  as  he  was,  he  kept  l.i«  feelings  of  depression, 
and  those  dark  hours  of  wrestling  with  doubt  and  disappointment 
and  anxiety,  which  must  come  to  every  thinking,  feeling  human 
being,  within  the  sanctuary  of  his  own  heart,  unveiled  only  to  one 
on  earth,  and  to  his  Father  in  Heaven.  And  when  he  came  out  of 
his  study,  and  met  his  children  and  guests  at  breakfast,  he  would 
greet  them  with  bright  courtesy  and  that  cheerful  disengaged  tem- 
per acquired  by  strict  self-discipline,  which  enabled  him  to  enter 
into  all  their  interests,  and  the  joy  and  playfulness  of  the  moment. 
The  family  gatherings  were  the  brightest  hours  in  the  day,  lit  up 
as  they  were  with  his  marvellous  humor.  "I  wonder,"  he  would 
say,  "  if  there  is  so  much  laughing  in  any  other  home  in  England 
as  in  ours."  He  became  a  light-hearted  boy  once  more  in  the 
presence  of  his  children,  and  still  more  remarkably  so  in  that  of 
his  aged  mother,  when  he  saw  her  face  clouded  with  depression 
during  her  later  years,  which  were  spent  under  his  roof.  He 
brought  sunshine  into  her  room  whenever  he  entered  it,  as  well  a? 
the  strong  spiritual  consolation  which  she  needed,  and  received  in 
his  daily  ministrations  by  her  bedside  morning  and  evening. 

The  griefs  of  children  were  to  him  most  piteous.  "A  child  over 
a  broken  toy  is  a  sight  I  cannot  bear,"  and  when  nursery  griefs  and 
broken  toys  were  taken  to  the  study,  he  was  never  too  busy  to 
mend  the  toy  and  dry  me  tears.  He  held  with  Jean  Paul  Richtei 
again,  that  children  have  their  "  days  and  hours  of  rain,"  days 
when  "the  child's  quicksilver"  fal'/s  rapidly  before  the  storms  and 
cold  weather  of  circumstances,  and  "parents  should  not  consider 
or  take  much  notice,    either   for   anxiety  or   sermons,"  *   lightl) 

♦  "  Levana,"  chap.  8. 


26o  Charles  Kin-gsley. 

passing  over  these  variations  of  temperature,  except  where  thej 
are  symptoms  of  coming  iUness.  And  here  his  knowledge  of 
physiology  and  that  delicate  organization  of  brain,  which  had 
given  him  many  a  sad  experience  in  his  own  childhood,  made  hii« 
keen  to  watch  and  detect  such  symptoms.  Weariness  at  lessons, 
and  sudden  fits  of  temper  or  obstinacy,  he  detected,  as  often 
springing  from  physical  causes,  and  not  to  be  treated  hastily  as 
moral,  far  less  spiritual  delinquencies,  being  merely,  perhaps, 
phases  of  depression,  which  pass  over  with  change  of  occupation, 
air  and  scene,  and  the  temporary  cessation  of  all  brain  work. 

Justice  and  mercy,  and  that  rigid  self-control,  which  kept  him 
from  speaking  a  hasty  word  or  harboring  a  mean  suspicion,  com- 
bined with  a  divine  tenderness,  were  his  governing  principles  in  all 
his  home  relationships.  It  has  been  said  of  Sir  William  Napier's 
expression  of  countenance,  in  words  that  perfectly  describe  Charles 
K-ingsley,  "  This  tenderness  was  never  so  marked  as  when  he  was 
looking  at  or  talking  with  little  children.  At  such  times  the  ex- 
pression which  came  over  his  face  was  wonderfully  beautiful  and 
touching.  Towards  these  little  creatures  he  had  an  eager  way  of 
stretching  out  his  hands,  as  if  to  touch  them,  but  with  a  hesitation 
arising  from  the  evident  dread  of  handling  them  too  roughly.  The 
same  sort  of  feeling,  too,  he  manifested  in  a  minor  degree,  towards 
small  animals,  little  dogs,  kittens  and  birds."  * 

And  he  respected  as  well  as  loved  his  children,  from  the  early 
days  when  "  Heaven  lay  about  them  in  their  infancy,"  and  he 
hung  with  reverent  and  yet  passionate  wonder  over  the  baby  in  its 
cradle,  to  grown-up  years  when  he  looked  upon  them  as  friends 
and  equals.  Home  was  to  them  so  real  a  thing  that  it  seemed  in 
a  way  as  if  it  must  be  eternal.  And  when  his  eldest  son,  in 
America,  heard  of  the  father's  death,  and  of  another  which  then 
seemed  imminent,  and  foresaw  the  break  up  of  the  home,  he  stood 
as  one  astonished,  only  to  say,  in  the  bitterness  of  his  soul : 

"  I  feel  as  if  a  huge  ship  had  broken  up  piece  by  piece,  plank  by 
plank,  and  we  children  were  left  clinging  to  one  strong  spar  alone 
— God  !  .  .  .  .  Ah,  how  many  shoals  and  quicksands  of 
life  he  piloted  me  through,  by  hii  wonderful  love,  knowledge,  and 
endurance — that  great  father  of  ours,  the  dust  of  whose  shoes  we 
are  not  worthy  to  kiss."     .... 

•  Life  of  Sir  W.  Napier. 


Father  and  Son.  261 

Neaily  two  years  have  passed  since  that  bitter  day^  and  his  son, 
now  at  home  once  more,  adds  his  memories  to  the  many  in  this 
book  of  memories. 

"  '  Perfect  love  casteth  out  all  fiar,'  was  the  motto  on  which  my 
father  based  his  theory  of  bringing  up  his  children ;  and  this  theory  ' 
he  put  in  practice  from  their  babyhood  till  when  he  left  them  as 
men  and  women.  From  this,  and  from  the  interest  he  took  in  all 
their  pursuits,  their  pleasures,  trials,  and  even  the  petty  details  ol 
their  everyday  life,  there  sprang  up  a  'friendship'  between  father 
and  children  that  mcreased  in  intensity  and  depth  with  years. 

"  To  speak  for  myself,  and  yet  I  know  full  well  I  speak  for  all, 
he  was  the  best  friend — the  only  true  friend  I  ever  had.  At  once 
he  was  the  most  fatherly  and  the  most  unfatherly  of  fathers — fatherly 
in  that  he  was  our  intimate  friend,  and  our  self-constituted  adviser ; 
unfatherly  in  that  our  feeling  for  him  lacked  that  fear  and  restraint 
that  make  boys  call  their  father  '  the  governor.' 

"I  remember  him  as  essentially  the  same  to  all  of  us  always  : 
utterly  unchanged  and  unchanging  since  the  time  that  he  used  to 
draw  Sunday  pictures  for  us  to  the  time  when  he  treated  us  as  men 
and  women  of  the  world. 

"Ours  was  the  only  household  I  ever  saw  in  which  there  was  no 
favoritism.  It  seemed  as  if  in  each  of  our  different  characters  he 
took  an  equal  pride,  while  he  fully  recognized  their  different  traits 
of  good  or  evil ;  for,  instead  of  having  one  code  of  social,  moral, 
and  physical  laws  laid  down  for  one  and  all  of  us,  each  child  became 
a  separate  study  for  him  ;  and  its  little  '  disearjcs  an  moral,^  as  he 
called  them,  were  treated  differently  according  to  each  different 
temperament. 

The  time  above  all  others  in  which  he  opened  out  his  heart  to  us, 
1  think,  was  walking  over  on  Sunday  evenings  to  the  services  held 
in  the  little  school-room  at  Bramshill. 

"  I  can  see  him  now,  on  one  of  those  many  summer  evenmgs,  as 
he  strode  out  of  the  back  garden-gate  with  a  sorrowful  '  No  !  go 
home.  Sweep!'  to  the  retriever  that  had  followed  us  stealthily 
down  the  walk,  and  who  now  stood  with  an  ear  cocked  and  one  ' 
paw  up,  hoping  against  hope,  that  he  might  be  allowed  to  come 
on.  I  can  feel  him  striding  by  me  in  the  narrow  path,  while  from 
the  bright  sky  and  the  look  of  the  country  he  drank  in  nature,  till 
bis  eye  lit  up,  his  chest  expanded,  his  step  grew  elastic,  and  he 
was  a  boy  again  with  me.  I  can  hear  him  tell  me,  at  the  bottom 
of  the  field,  of  a  heavy  fall  out  hunting  over  the  fence  into  the 
meadow,  and  his  ringing  laugh  at  the  recollection  oY  his  own  mis- 
hap. His  cheery  '  Good  afternoon '  to  the  cottager  at  the  corner  ^ 
the  'Well-done,  boy,'  and  grim  smile  of  approval,  with  which  he 
greeted  a  jump  over  the  gate  at  the  top  of  the  hill,  on  which  h* 


262  Charles  Ktngsley. 

sits  a  moment  to  take  in  the  long  sweeps  of  purple  heather  run 
ning  down  to  the  yellow  corn  land — the  brown  roof  of  the  Rectory 
bursting  up  among  its  trees — the  long  flats  of  the  little  valley,  with 
its  greens  and  cricketers.  '  For  cricket,'  he  used  to  say,  '  is  bettei 
than  beer,  and  the  poor  lads  don't  get  a  chance  to  play  on  week> 
day  :  but  remember  you  do.' 

"  And  then  the  walk  on  over  the  moor,  chatting  gaily  of  the 
fox's  earth  hard  by,  the  green  tiger-beetle  that  whirred  from  under 
our  feet,  the  nightjar  (goatsucker)  that  fluttered  up  from  a  sandy 
place  in  the  path,  and  swooped  madly  away  among  the  fir  trees, 
while  ever  and  anon  some  word  would  strike  a  deeper  chord,  and  a 
few  words  would  put  something  that  mayhap  had  been  an  old 
stumbling-block,  into  an  entirely  new  and  true  light. 

"  All  his  deepest  teaching,  his  strongest  influence  was,  in  a 
way^  of  the  negative  kind,  inasmuch  as  there  were  no  long  lectures, 
no  pithy  arguments,  but  in  his  own  life  he  showed,  spoke,  and 
lived  his  doctrines,  so  that  his  utter  unselfishness,  his  genial  tender- 
ness towards  their  mother  and  themselves,  gave  the  children  an 
example  that  could  not  be  passed  by  unnoticed,  however  unworthily 
followed. 

"  The  only  thing  that  he  really  required  of  us  was  reverence  and 
respect  for  ])eople  older  than  ourselves,  which  was  also  one  of  the 
most  strongly  marked  traits  in  his  own  character,  and  one  which 
made  him  entirely  ignore  himself  and  his  own  superiority,  in  most 
cases,  in  speaking  to  men  older  than  he  was. 

"  This  required  reverence,  however,  on  our  part,  never  created 
any  feeling  of  restraint  when  with  him  ;  too  true  a  friendship  ex- 
isted, and  perhaps  the  brightest  picture  of  the  past  that  I  look  back 
to  now — that  we  can  all  look  back  to  is — not  the  eager  look  of 
delight  with  which  he  used  to  hail  any  of  our  little  successes — not 
any  s|)ecial  case  of  approval,  but  it  is  the  drawing-room  at  Eversley 
in  the  evenings  when  we  were  all  at  home  and  by  ourselves.  There 
he  sat,  v/ith  one  hand  in  mother's,  forgetting  his  own  hard  work  and 
worry  in  leading  our  fun  and  frolic,  with  a  kindly  smile  on  his  lips, 
and  a  loving  light  in  that  bright  grey  eye  that  made  us  feel  that,  in 
the  broadest  sense  of  the  word,  he  was  our  father." 

"To  see  him  with  you  and  the  children,"  said  a  friend,  "was 
[■}  know  what  the  ?nan  was.  1  made  that  remark  when  the  chil- 
dren  were  young,  and  how  tenfold  more  was  this  the  case  when 
they  grew  up  around  him." 

But  to  speak  of  his  home  without  mentioi.ing  his  love  of  animals 
would  be  to  leave  the  picture  incomplete.  His  dog  and  his  horse 
were  his  friends,  and  they  knew  it,  and  uni'erstood  his  voice  and 
eye.     He  was  a  perfect  horseman,  and  never  lost  his  temper  with 


264  Charles  Kingsley. 

honest  in  feeling,  that  all  without  exception  is  beautiful,  w!io  yet 
cannot,  after  handling,  and  petting,  and  examining  all  day  long 
every  uncouth  and  venomous  beast,  avoid  a  paroxysm  of  hori'or  at 
the  sight  of  the  common  house-spider  !  " 

But,  after  all,  a  bird,  he  often  said,  was  to  him  the  most  won- 
derful of  God's  creations  ;  he  watched  for  the  arrival  of  the  birds  of 
passage  every  spring  with  a  strange  longing,  and  seemed  less  restles? 
after  the  swallow  had  appeared  at  Eversley.  His  eyes  would  fill 
with  tears  at  each  fresh  arrival,  and  again  each  autumn  as  he 
grieved  over  their  departure.  He  knew  their  every  note,  and  waa 
never  tired  of  watching  their  character  and  habits. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

1857. 

Aged  38. 

"  Tv  J  Years  Ago  " — The  Crowded  Church — Unquiet  Sundays — Letters  to  Mr. 
Bullar — Dr.  Rigg — Mr,  Tom  Hughes'  Pietists  and  Oti/ioj — Letter  from  a  Navs] 
Chaplain — Indian  Mutiny — The  Romance  of  Real  Life. 

The  year  1857  opened  brightly  on  Charles  Kingsley,  for  it  found 
bini,  for  the  first  time  for  three  years,  in  his  own  home  for  the 
winter  at  Eversley,  with  his  wife  and  his  three  children. 

"  I  am  writing  nothing  now  ;  but  taking  breath,  and  working  in 
the  parish — never  better  than  I  am  at  present ;  with  many  bless- 
ings, and,  awful  confession  for  mortal  man,  no  sorrows  !  I  some- 
times think  there  must  be  terrible  arrears  of  sorrow  to  be  paid  off 
by  me — that  I  may  be  as  other  men  are  !  God  help  me  in 
that  day  !  " 

He  writes  in  January  to  his  friend  Mr.  Hughes  : — 

"The  book  is  done  ('Two  Years  Ago')  ;  the  last  proof  going 
through  the  press  now,  and  I  know  you  will  like  it.  ...  I  am 
better  off  now  than  I  have  been  for  years  !  God  be  thanked,  and 
God  grant,  too,  that  I  may  not  require  to  be  taken  down  by  some 
terrible  trouble.  1  often  fancy  I  shall  be.  If  I  am,  I  shall  deserve 
it,  as  much  as  any  man  who  ever  lived.  I  say  so  now — ^justifying 
God  beforehand,  lest  I  should  not  have  faith  and  patience  enough 
to  justify  Him  when  the  punishment  comes.  .  .  .  Many 
thanks  for  your  wholesome  letter — the  rightest  letter  I  have  had 
for  many  a  day.  It  has  taught  nie  a  great  deal,  dear  old  man; 
and  you  are  nearer  to  God  than  I  am,  I  see  well.     .     .     ." 

The  **  terrible  trouble  "  came, — but  not  in  the  shape  of  personal 
grief  or  domestic  affliction  ;  and,  till  the  awful  news  from  India 
burst  upon  England,  all  went  well.  He  was  made  this  year  a  Fel 
low  of  the  Linnean  Society,  which  had  been  one  of  the  ambitions 
of  his  life.  Two  visits  from  his  dear  friend  Max  Miiller  (soon  to  be 
more  nearly  related  to  him),  refreshed  his  spirit.      Mr.  Chadwick, 


266  Charles  Kings  ley. 

with  whose  kind  assistance  he  was  hard  at  work  on  sanitary  an^i 
educational  subjects,  came  to  discuss  these  questions  with  hiiu, 
and  a  strange  medley  of  vistors  proposed  themselwes,  and  were 
n)ade  welcome,  at  the  Rectory.  One  day,  a  Unitarian  minister, — 
clergymen  of  the  Church  of  England,  Dissenters,  Americans — ail 
came  on  missions  of  their  own,  and  opened  their  hearts  to  him  as 
they  could  to  no  other  man.  And  on  the  lawn,  under  the  old  fii 
trees  on  long  summer  days,  he  and  his  guests  discussed  all  things 
in  heaven  and  earth, 

Sunday  after  Sunday  he  had  the  keen  delight  of  seeing  Crimean 
officers  from  Aldershot  and  Sandhurst  in  his  congregation.  Among 
others  one  who  had  been  dangerously  wounded  in  the  Redan,  at 
Sevastopol,  and  who,  when  lying  between  life  and  death  at  Scutari, 
had  read  "  Yeast,"  and  determined,  if  he  ever  came  back  alive,  "  to 
go  and  hear  the  clergyman  preach  who  could  give  such  a  picture 
of  a  hunting  scene  as  the  one  in  the  opening  chapter."  One  Sun- 
day he  came — while  still  on  crutches — a  stranger  to  Mr.  Kingsley, 
but  soon  to  become  a  friend,  a  constant  attendant  at  church,  and 
always  a  welcome  guest  at  the  Rectory  early  Sunday  dinner. 

Each  day  the  post  brought  some  letter  either  of  thanks  for  his 
books  or  asking  counsel.  He  preached  a  series  of  sermons  on  the 
Creed,  and  one,  by  request  of  a  member  of  the  congregation  who 
wrote  anonymously,  on  the  Intermediate  and  Future  State,  when 
he  ventured  to  speak  more  ])lainly  than  he  had  yet  done  in  the  pul- 
pit on  the  subject  so  near  his  heart.  The  little  church  was  often  full 
of  strangers,  and  one  Sunday,  when  twelve  carriages  were  standing 
in  and  outside  tlie  stable-yard,  the  sexton  was  heard  to  say,  he 
could  not  think  why  there  was  "  such  flitting  to  and  fro  to  our 
church  on  Sundays."  Having  heard  the  same  preaching  for  fifteen 
years  himself,  he  could  not  tell  what  the  wonder  of  it  was.  To  the 
lector  this  notoriety  was  simply  painful  :  "  I  cannot  bear  having 
my  place  turned  into  a  fair  on  Sundays,  and  all  this  talking  after 
thurch."  So  to  avoid  the  greetings  of  acquaintances  and  the  ob- 
servation of  strangers  in  the  churchyard,  he  had  a  little  back  gate 
made  into  his  garden,  and  escaped  after  service,  through  the  vest- 
try  door.  His  whole  soul  and  energy  were  thrown  so  intensely  into 
the  services  of  his  church,  that  when  they  were  over  he  found 
quiet  essential  to  help  him  to  calm  down  from  the  excitement  of 
his  own  earnestness. 


Self-demal.    .  267 

In  the  summer  t/ie  news  of  the  Indian  mutiny  came,  whicli  ab- 
s.)rbed  and  depressed  him-  and  some  friends,  knowing  how  ha; d- 
worked  and  sad  he  was,  invited  him  to  go  with  them  to  the  Man- 
chester Exhibition,  then  open,  with  all  its  glorious  pictures  :  but 
when  the  day  came  he  could  not  make  up  his  mind  to  leave  a  poor 
sick  man,  who  he  felt  would  miss  his  daily  visits.  With  his  keen 
lovo  of  art,  it  cost  him  a  pang  to  give  up  the  sight  of  such  a  collec- 
tion of  pictures  as  might  never  again  come  together  in  England 
during  his  lifetime ;  but  he  said  he  could  not  have  enjoyed  thera 
while  a  parishioner  was  counting  on  seeing  him.  This  trifling  in- 
cident is  mentioned  to  show  how  thorough  and  unselfish  he  was  in 
his  parish  work,  which  in  this  case  could  so  easily  have  been  passed 
over  for  three  days  to  any  neighboring  clergyman. 

He  seldom  went  to  London  ;  and  to  a  friend  who  pressed  hinj 
to  come  up  and  hear  one  of  his  own  songs  finely  sung  there,  he 
refused.  "  I  love  home  and  green  fields  more  and  more,  and 
never  lust  either  after  Babylon  or  the  Continent.     .     ." 

TO    JOHN    BULLAR,    ESQ. 

EvERSLEV,  Jattuary  27,  1857. 

"Your  theory  of  speaking  is  all  true.  My  defect  was  the  same 
as  your  friend's,  but  mine  came  from  an  under  jaw  contracted  by 
calomel,  and  nerves  ruined  by  croup  and  brain  fever  in  childhood. 
That  prevented  my  opening  my  mouth  ;  that  gave  me  a  wrong  use 
of  the  diaphragm  muscles,  till  I  got  to  speak  inspiring,  and  never 
to  fully  inflate  my  lungs ;  and  that  brought  on  the  last  and  worst 
(yet  most  easily  cured)  spasm  of  the  tongue.  All  the  while,  I  could 
speak,  not  only  plain  but  stentorially,  while  boxing,  rowing,  hunt- 
ing, skating,  and  doing  anything  which  compelled  deep  inspira- 
tions.    ..." 

"  Matthew  xxii.  30,  has  been  to  me  always  a  comfort.  I  am  st 
11,'ell  and  reall)'-  married  on  earth,  that  I  should  be  exceedingl) 
sorry  to  be  married  again  in  heaven  ;  and  it  would  be  very  need- 
less. All  I  can  say  is,  if  I  do  not  love  my  wife,  body  and  soul,  as 
well  there  as  I  do  here,  tt  en  there  is  neither  resurrection  of  my 
boly  nor  of  iiiy  soul,  but  of  some  other,  and  I  shall  not  be  I. 
Therefore,  whatsoever  the  passage  means,  it  can't  mean  what 
monks  make  it.  Ten  years  ago  I  asked  in  'Yeast'  the  question 
which  my  favorite  old  monk  legends  (from  which  1  have  learnt 
volumes)  forced  on  me,  *  Who  told  you  that  the  angelic  life  wai 
single  ?  '  and  I  have  found  no  answer  yet.     .     .     ," 


268  Charles  Kingsley. 

March  19,  1B57, 

"Many  thanks  for  your  faiorable  opinion  cif  the  book  ('TwC 
Years  Ago') ;  but  I  fear  you  take  Tom  Thurnah  for  a  better  man 
than  he  was,  and  must  beg  you  not  to  pare  my  man  to  suit  your 
own  favorable  conception  ;  but  consider  that  that  is  the  sort  of  man 
1  want  to  draw,  and  you  must  take  him  as  you  find  him.  My  experi- 
ence is,  that  men  of  his  character  (Hke  all  strong  men  till  God's  grace 
takes  full  possession  of  them)  are  weak  upon  one  point — every  thing 
can  they  stand  but  that ;  and  the  more  they  restrain  themselves  from 
prudential  motives,  the  more  sudden  and  violent  is  the  temptation 
t\'hen  it  comes.  I  have  indicated  as  delicately  as  I  could  the  world- 
wide fact,  which  all  know  and  all  ignore  ;  had  I  not  done  so,  Thur- 
nall  would  have  been  a  mere  chimera  fit  only  for  a  young  lady's 
novel. 

"  I  feel  deeply  the  change  in  one's  imagination  during  the  last 
twenty  years.  As  a  child  I  never  could  distinguish  dreams  from 
imaginations,  imaginations  from  waking  impressions;  and  was  often 
thought  to  be  romancing  when  I  was  relating  a  real  impression. 
In  ill  health  from  overwork  about  16  to  18,  I  had  spectral  illusions 
often  (one  as  clear  as  any  of  Nicolai's),  accompanied  with  frightful 
nervous  excitability,  and  inability  to  settle  to  any  work,  though 
always  working  at  something  in  a  fierce,  desultory  way.  At  twenty 
I  found  out  tobacco.  The  spectres  vanished ;  the  power  of  dull 
application  arose ;  and  for  the  first  time  in  my  life,  I  began  to  be 
master  of  my  own  bi'ain. 

"  Now,  I  am  in  general  the  most  prosaic  and  matter-of-fact  of 
parsons,  I  cannot  dream  if  I  try.  I  go  to  my  brain  as  to  a  store- 
house or  carpenter's  shop,  from  which  I  take  out  coolly  what  I 
want,  and  put  it  into  the  best  shape  I  can.  The  German  mode  of 
thought,  feeling,  and  writing,  such  as  you  find  in  Jean  Paul  or  Novalis, 
lies  behind  me,  as  'boy's  love'  belonging  to  an  era  'when  the 
spirits  of  the  prophets*  were  not  yet  'subject  to  the  prophets.' 
VVhether  this  be  right  or  wrong,  I  know  not ;  bu^  I  confess  the 
fact ; — and  if  we  ever  get  a  week  together,  I  fear  that  you  will  think 
me  a  most  dull  and  frivolous  fellow,  who  cares  for  nothing  but  to 
romp  with  your  children,  and  pick  flowers,  and  study  the  weather 
utque  ad  nauseam. 

"  But  here  Hes  the  difference  between  us.  Your  work  is  utterly 
of  the  head  ;  and  you  go  for  amusement  to  fancy,  to  imagination, 
\o  metaphysic.  My  svork,  whether  parish  or  writing,  lies  just  in  the 
sphere  wherein  you  play  ;  and  if  1  played  in  that  sphere  too,  I 
shoultl  go  mad,  or  soften  my  brain,  like  poor  Southey,  Sc  when  I 
play,  I  think  about  nothing;  ride,  fish,  chat  with  the  farn  ers  over 
the  crops,  examine  beetles  and  worms,  and  forget  that  I  have  a 
heart  as  much  as  I  can.  But  I  won't  here  you  more  about 
myself." 


Mrs.   GaskelVs  Life  of  Charlotte  Bronte.   269 

TO    REV.   DR.    RIGG. 

EVERSLEY,  A^yil^,  1857 

"  I  have  to  thank  you  for  an  able  and  candid  review  of  my  wn» 
ings  in  the  '  London  Quarterly  Review.'  I  am  sorry  tc  difier  from 
3'ou,  but  I  take  this  opportunity  of  assuring  you  that  our  difference! 
are  far  fewer  than  you  fancy,  and  that  you  would,  I  think,  find  me 
less  unorthodox  than  you  will  have  made  your  readers  take  me  to  be. 

"But  one  statement  I  must  energetically  contradict — that  I  am 
in  ahywise  in  theology  a  follower  of  Mr.  Thomas  Carlyle.  I  have 
pointed  out  in  my  works  certain  points  on  which,  in  past  years,  he 
has  done  good  service  ;  but  I  am  at  a  loss  to  conceive  why  my 
having  done  so  should  make  any  man  think  that  I  agree  with  his 
theology.  This  hasty  assumption  has  led  you  to  suppose  that  he  is 
the  'mystic  teacher'  to  whom  I  alluded  in  my  review  of  Vaughan's 
*  Mystics,'  a  notion  only  equalled  in  wrongness  by  that  of  some 
people  that  I  meant  Mr.  Urquhart.      It  has  also  led  you  into  the 

mistake  that  I  sympathise  with  his  attack  on  Howard 

If  you  wish  to  see  whether  I  am  a  Pantheist  or  not,  may  I  beg  you 
to  peruse  pp.  243-247  of  vol.  iii.  of  'Two  Years  Ago,'  on  which  a 
Baptist  review  well  remarked,  that  whatever  I  was,  a  Pantheist  I 
was  not." 

This  correspondence  led  to  a  personal  acquaintance  and  warm 
friendship  between  Mr.  Kingsley  and  Dr.  Rigg,  now  the  respected 
head  of  the  Wesleyan  Training  College,  Horseferry  Road,  London. 

TO    MRS.    GASKELL. 

St.  Leonard's,  May  14,  1857. 

"  Let  me  renew  our  long-interrupted  acquaintance  hy  compli- 
menting you  on  poor  Miss  Brontes  Life.  You  have  had  a  delicate 
and  a  great  work  to  do,  and  you  have  done  it  admirably.  Be  sure 
that  the  book  will  do  good.  It  will  shame  literary  people  into 
some  stronger  belief  that  a  simple,  virtuous,  practical  heme  life  is 
consistent  with  high  imaginative  genius  ;  and  it  will  shame,  too, 
the  prudery  of  a  not  over  cleanly,  though  carefully  white-washed 
age,  into  believing  that  purity  is  noAv  (as  in  all  ages  till  now)  quite 
compatible  with  the  knowledge  of  evil.  I  confess  that  the  book 
has  made  me  ashamed  of  myself  'Jane  Eyre'  I  hardly  looked 
into,  very  seldom  reading  a  work  of  fiction — yours,  inceed,  and 
Thackeray's  *  are  the  only  ones  I   care  to  open.     '  Shirley  '  dis- 

*  Of  Thackeray's  '♦  Vanity  Fair"  his  estimate  was  very  high.  In  a  lettfi 
to  his  wife  in  1850  lie  says,  "  I  can  read  nothing  bat  '  Vanity  Fair,'  over  and 
over  again,  which  fills  me  with  delight,  wonder,  and  humility  j  verb  "Oi  x.\m 
have  (frawn  Ravvdon  Crawley  than  all  the  folks  I  ever  I'rfv.  ' 


zyo  Charles  Kingsley, 

gusted  rue  at  the  opening  :  and  I  gave  up  the  writer  and  her  bach  i 
with  the  notion  that  she  was  a  person  who  hked  coarseness.  Ho^v 
I  misjudged  her  !  and  how  thankful  I  am  that  I  never  put  a  woid 
of  my  misconceptions  into  print,  or  recorded  my  misjudgmeius  vX 
one  who  is  a  whole  heaven  above  me. 

"  Well  have  you  done  your  work,  and  given  us  the  picture  of  ;i 
valiant  woman  made  perfect  by  sufferings.  I  shall  now  read  caiL- 
fuUy  and  lovingly  every  word  she  has  written,  especially  \\\o-.'\ 
poems,  which  ought  not  to  have  fallen  dead  as  they  did.  au;1 
which  seem  to  be  (from  a  review  in  the  current  J^raser),  of  re- 
markable strength  and  purity.  I  must  add  that  Mrs.  Kingslev 
agrees  fully  with  all  I  have  said,  and  bids  me  tell  you  that  she  is 
more  intensely  interested  in  the  book  than  in  almost  any  which  she 
has  ever  read." 

TO   TOM    HUGHES,  ESQ. 

EVERSLEY,  June  12,  1857. 

"  Eight  and  thirty  years  old  am  I  this  day,  Tummas  ;  whereof 
twenty-two  were  spent  in  pain,  in  woe,  and  vanitie  ;  and  sixteen 
in  very  great  happiness,  such  as  few  men  deserve,  and  I  don't 
deserve  at  all.  And  now  I  feel  like  old  Jacob,  '  with  my  staff  I 
passed  over  Jordan,  and  now  I  am  become  two  bands' — foj  why? 
I  actually  couldn't  get  home  from  Hastings  except  in  two  relays, 
what  with  servants,  tutor,  and  governess.  Well,  Tom,  God  has 
been  very  good  to  me  ;  and  I  can't  help  feeding  a  hope  that  I  may 
fight  a  good  fight  yet  before  I  die,  and  get  something  done.  I've 
done  little  enough  yet.  The  best  work  ever  I've  done  has  been 
my  plain  parish  work,  and  that  I've  done  miserably  ill,  cowardly 
and  idly  of  late,  and  bullying  and  second-hand  dogmatic  of  old  ; 
but  perhaps  I  shall  get  training  enough  to  go  into  the  fight  well  before 
1  die ;  and  if  not,  I  trust  one's  not  going  to  be  idle  up  there,  Tom. 
Surely  as  long  as  there's  a  devil  01  devils,  even  an  ass  or  asses, 
in  the  universe,  one  will  have  to  turn  out  to  the  reveille  now  and 
then,  wherever  one  is,  and  satisfy  one's  ^u/ao?  'rage'  or  'pluck,' 
which  Plato  averreth  (for  why,  he'd  have  been  a  wraxling  man,  and 
therefore  was  a  philoso|)her,  and  the  king  of  'em)  to  be  the  root  of 
all  virtue.      Why  not,  Tom  ?     Mayn't  we? 

"  Now  to  business.  Tommy,  which  is  fish.  O  that  I  could  go  t(» 
I.ambourne  Monday  !  But  I  preach  in  town  Sunday,  and  have 
three  good  fellows  a  dying  in  my  parish,  so  that  I  must  be  at  home 
Mondav  afternoon.  But  oh  if  you  take  Donnington  Priory,  won't 
I  immortalise  you  in  verse  and  prose  ?  Oh  the  bliss  !  I  think  the 
boys  will  catch  o.  The  fish  will  be  glutted  with  the  fly,  and  atten- 
dant Naiads  pitying,  holding  basins  under  their  noses  :  moital 
aldcrmanic  they  were  Wednesday  here,  I  caught  a  fairish  lot  on 
th^  Capercr,  which  they  took  rs  a  relish  to  tl  e  heavy  fly  ;  but  the 


071    Tom  Brown.  i)\ 

moment  ihey  were  ashore  the  Mayflies  came  up.  Oh  a  Dcivci 
steamer  in  a  chopping  sea  was  cleanly  to  it.  Poor  carnal  parties  ! 
Why  shouldn't  they  tuck  while  they  can  ?  Mayflies  come  to  them 
at  VVhilsuntide,  as  club-feasts  do  to  the  clods,  to  give  them  one 
jolly  blow  out  in  the  year,  and  it's  a  pleasure  to  look  at  them. 
That's  why  good  fishing  days  always  fall  on  Sundays,  Tom,  to  give 
ihe  poor  fish  a  good  day's  appetite  (dinner  always  ready),  and 
nobody  to  catch  them  while  they're  enjoying  it. 

"Also  make  a  note  of  this.  A  party  widi  doubtful  h's,  and 
commercial  demeanor,  appears  on  Wednesday  on  our  little  stream, 
and  kills  awfully.  Throws  a  beautiful  line,  and  catches  more  than 
1  have  in  a  day  foi  this  two  years  here  ;  fly,  a  little  green  drake, 
with  a  ridiculous  tufted  bright  yellow  wing,  like  nothing  as  ever 
was.  Stood  aghast  ;  went  home  and  dreamed  all  the  spiders'  webs 
by  the  stream  were  full  of  thousands  of  them,  the  most  beautiful 
yellow  ephemercE  with  green  peacock-tail  heads.  Oh  the  beauty 
of  them  ;  and  wasn't  I  riled  when  I  found  it  was  all  for  fancy  ? 
Hut  won't  I  '  realoirioize,'  as  the  Scots  parsons  say,  those  litlh 
fellows  next  year,  and  apply  them  to  the  part  afl'ected  ?  " 

EvERSLEV,  1857. 
*'  I  have  often  been  minded  to  write  to  you  about  '  Tom  Brown,' 
so  here  goes.  I  have  puffed  it  everywhere  I  went,  but  I  soon 
found  how  true  the  adage  is  that  good  wine  needs  no  bush,  for 
every  one  had  read  it  already,  and  from  every  one,  from  the  fine 
lady  on  her  throne,  to  the  red- coat  on  his  cock-horse,  and  the 
5choo!-boy  on  his  forrum  (as  our  Irish  brethren  call  it),  I  have 
heard  but  one  word,  and  that  is,  that  it  is  the  jolliest  book  they 
ever  read.  Among  a  knot  of  red-coats  at  the  cover-side,  some 
very  fast  fellow  said,  '  If  I  had  had  such  a  book  in  my  boyhood,  I 
should  have  been  a  better  man  now  ! '  and  more  than  orte  capped 
his  sentiment  frankly.  Now  isn't  it  a  comfort  to  your  old  bones 
to  have  writtten  such  a  book,  and  a  comfort  to  see  that  fellows 
are  in  a  humor  to  take  it  in  ?  So  far  from  finding  men  of  oui 
lank  in  a  bad  vein,  or  sighing  over  the  times  and  prospects  of  the 
H^,illg  generation,  I  can't  help  thinking  they  are  very  teachab'e, 
humble,  honest  fellows,  who  want  to  know  what's  right,  and  if  they 
don  t  go  and  do  it,  still  think  the  worse  of  themselves  therefore.  I 
renoaik  now,  that  with  hounds,  and  in  fast  company,  I  nevei  hcsi 
an  oath  and  that,  too,  is  a  sign  of  self-restraint.  Moreover,  drink- 
ing is  gone  out,  and,  good  God,  what  a  blessing  !  I  have  good 
hopes,  and  better  of  our  class,  than  of  the  class  below.  They 
are  effeminate,  and  that  makes  them  sensual.  Pietists  of  all  ages 
(George  Fox,  my  dear  friend,  among  the  worst),  never  made  a 
greater  mistake  (and  they  have  made  many),  than  in  fancying 
that  by  keeping  down  manly  6vfji.6<;,  which  Plato  saith  is  tie  rool 
of  all  virtue,  they  could  keep  down  sensuality.     They   (ve  e  deai 


272  Charles  Kingsley, 

good  old  foolj.  However,  the  day  of  '  Pietism '  is  gone,  anrt 
'Tcm  Brown'  is  a  heavy  stone  in  its  grave  'Him  no  get  up 
again  after  that,'  as  the  niggers  say  of  a  buiied  obi-man.  I  am 
trying  to  pohsh  the  poems  :  but  Maurice's  hoUdays  make  me  idle 
Powles'  school  has  been  most  successful  for  him  ;  he  has  cone 
home  healthier  and  jollier  than  ever  he  was  in  his  life,  and  \% 
truly  a  noble  boy. 

"  Sell  your  last  coat  and  buy  a  spoon.  I  have  ri  spoon  of  huge 
size  (Farlow  his  make).  I  killed  forty  pounds  weight  of  pike,  &c., 
on  it  the  other  day,  at  Strathfieldsaye,  to   the  astonishment  and 

delight  of ,  who  cut  small  jokes  on  '  a  spoon  at  each  end,'  &c. 

but  altered  his  note  when  he  saw  the  melancholies  coming  ashore, 
one  every  ten  minutes,  and  would  try  his  own  hand.  I  have 
killed  heaps  of  big  pike  round  with  it.  I  tried  it  in  Lord  Eversley's 
lakes  on  Monday,  when  the  fish  wouldn't  have  even  his  fly.  Ca- 
pricious party  is  Jaques.  Next  day  killed  a  sevr.n  pounder  at 
Huist.  I  am  going  again  to  the  Speaker's,  for  lie  wants  his  jack 
killed  down,  and  has  hurt  his  leg  so  that  he  can't  do  it,  wherefore 
he  has  sent  for  me.  Ain't  I  a  slaved  party  ;  ill-used  by  aristocrats, 
and  compelled  to  fish  in  waters  where  his  last  was  eleven  pounds, 
and  where  he  has  had  them  out  of  twenty-four  and  eighteen  ?  " 

During  the  course  of  the  year  a  letter  arrived  fiom  a  chaplain 
of  a  Queen's  ship  on  the  Nova  Scotia  station,  who,  after  apolo- 
gizing for  the  liberty  he  was  taking  in  writing  to  thank  him  for  his 
books,  adds — 

"  I  found  on  our  arrival  here  (Halifax)  that  an  edition  of  '  Two 
Years  Ago,'  published  at  Boston,  was  to  be  had  :  but  no  one  seemed 
to  know  it.  My  purpose  in  writing  to  you  is  partly  for  encourage- 
ment in  the  preaching  of  views  to  which  I  am  becoming  the  more 
and  more  attached,  and  partly  to  tell  you  how  nuich  your  books 
are  liked  by  naval  men.  I  could,  also,  tell  you  of  good  resulting 
from  the  reading  of  them.  For  example,  I  know  one  instance  of 
an  officer,  who  is  a  man  of  cultivated  mind,  and  yet  he  told  me 
th.xt  until  he  had  read  '  Two  Years  Ago,'  he  had  never  ru..l  liis 
piayers  (for  years  past)  except  when  in  trouble.  It  would  fill  up 
this  letter  altogether,  were  I  to  tell  you  of  all  the  praises  I  hear 
from  every  one  of  my  mess-mates  who  have  read  this  book.  I  con- 
sider it  a  duty  to  get  them  all  to  read  it,  and  '  Westward  Ho  ! ' ;  as 
I  believe,  both  are  calculated  to  make  men  better.  I  have  got 
them  both  for  the  sick  quarters,  and  hope  to  have  them  generally 
read  by  the  ship's  company  as  well 

"  About  sailors.  I  have  always  found  that  they  came  willinglj 
tc  church.  My  preaching  since  I  have  refd  your  '  Sermois  for  the 
Times,'  speaks  more  of  love  than  ever ;  I  always  held  Jhe  i»anie 


Sailors  and  "  Two   Years  Ago!^  272 

opinions,  but  was  afiaid  of  the  preaching  of  them  ;  now,  however 
that  I  find  one  whom  I  beUeve  to  be  both  wise  and  good  not  afraid, 
I  do  not  see  why  I  should  be  so  either. 

"I  have  a  bible  class  for  the  men,  which  I  tried  in  the  'cock- 
pit' and  failed  ;  on  the  main-deck,  and  failed  ;  and  at  last,  taking 
a  lesson  from  '  Two  Years  Ago,'  I  resolved  to  go  to  the  men  instead 
of  expecting  them  to  come  to  me— and  thus,  I  have  at  last  suc- 
ceeded. My  plan  was  the  following  : — I  went  to  the  fore-capstan, 
round  which  the  men  smoke,  and  laying  my  book  down  thereon,  I 
said  I  was  come  to  read  a  chapter  for  them,  and  that  those  who 
did  not  wish  to  be  present,  might  move  '  aft ' — and  that,  so  far  from 
wishing  to  interrupt  their  smoking  time  (evening)  it  was  my  special 
desire  that  they  should  continue  smoking,  their  attention  being  all 
I  wanted.  I  have  this  class  now  regularly  on  Thursday  evenings, 
and  a  more  attentive  or  orderly  audience  could  not  be  seen  ;  the 
nien  are  beginning  to  feel  an  interest  in  it  and  congregate  there 
some  time  before  the  hoar  arrives,  I  wish  you  could  see  them, 
such  fine  manly  handsome  fellows.  I  know  it  is  doing  good.  11 
might  at  first  sight  be  su|)posed  that  the  time,  place,  and  circum- 
stances would  be  calculated  to  lower  my  position  ;  but  so  far  from 
that,  the  men  know  that  1  must  be  in  earnest,  and  they  are  more 
gentle  and  respectful  than  ever.  I  need  hardly  say  that  I  preach 
love  to  them  as  the  great  inducement,  and  agree  with  you  that  no 
other  plan  should  be  tried  ....  Yxom.  the  '  Sermons  of  the 
Times,'  I  have  learnt  much,  and  now  have  clearer  ideas  on  many 
of  the  subjects " 

After  some  particularly  bitter  newspaper  attacks,  a  friend  writes 
to  him  to  tell  him  the  effect  "  Two  Years  Ago  "  had  had  on  a  dis- 
tinguished member  of  one  of  our  universities,  who  had  had  no  settled 
faith  for  years. 

"  I  write  for  your  soul's  comfort  in  your  noble  and  much  tra^ 
duced  work  in  God's  service.  Poor  dear  *  *  *  attributed  hip 
I'lnng  convinced  of  sin,  and  driven  to  seek  Christ  the  Lord  and 
Savior,  to  your  last  book,  especially  that  fearful  account  of  Llsley 
Vavasour's  chase  across  the  mountain,  and  Tom  Thurnall's  expe^ 
rience  in  the  Russian  dungeon.  He  had  always  said  to  me  that  he 
nev'^r  could  understand  what  was  meant  by  the  sense  of  sin  a- 
spoken  of  in  the  Bible,  and  by  Maurice  in  his  Theological  Essays. 
But  one  night,  about  six  weeks  before  his  death,  when  he  awoke  in 
pain  and  darkness  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  the  remembrance  of 
that  terrible  isolation  which  you  had  described  in  these  passages 
came  upon  him  in  awful  horror,  and  drove  him  to  seek  help  from 
God.  No  one  who  knew  *  *  *  before  that  time  and  after  it 
could  fail  to  see  how  great  the  change  was  that  was  v  'ought  in  him. 
i8 


274  Charles  Kingsley. 

He  only  spoke  of  it  to  me  5nce,  and  as  I  knew  how  distasteful  tc 
nini  was  all  self-analysis  at  least  to  others,  I  never  re-opened  the 
matter,  but  after  his  deatl:  I  found  he  had  said  the  same  thing 
(Q  *  *  *_  Now,  my  dear  Kingsley,  I  trust  this  will  be  some  com- 
fort to  you  in  the  midst  of  all  this  foolish  calumny.  As  I  said,  1 
meant  to  have  written  of  this  to  Mrs.  Kingsley.  I  know  how  she 
would  prize  such  a  fact  in  connection  with  such  a  man." 


TO    REV.    GEORGE    HENSLOWE. 

[Who   had  written   to  him   as  to  the  possibility  of  a  sense  of  humor  in   th« 

Creator.] 

EVERSLEY,  Sept.  II,  1857. 

"  I  cannot  see  how  your  notions  can  be  gainsayed,  save  by  those 
who  have  a  lurking  belief  that  God  is  the  Devil,  after  all — a  sort  of 
unjust  and  exacting  Zeus,  against  whom  they  would  rebel  if  they 
bid  Prometheus'  courage  :  but  not  having  that,  must  flatter  him 
instead. 

"  The  matter  presents  itself  to  me  thus.  I  see  humor  in  animals, 
e.g.,  a  crab  and  a  monkey,  a  parrot,  a  crow.  I  don't  find  this  the 
result  of  a  low  organization.  In  each  of  these  four  cases  the  animal 
is  of  the  highest  belonging  to  this  class.  Well ;  there  the  fact  is  ; 
if  I  see  it,  God  must  see  it  also,  or  I  must  have  more  insight  than 
God  into  God's  own  works.     Q.  E.  Abs. 

"Then  comes  a  deeper  question.  God  sees  it:  but  is  He 
affected  by  it  ?  I  think  we  could  give  no  answer  to  this,  save  on 
the  ground  of  a  Son  of  God,  who  is  that  image  of  the  father  in 
whom  man  is  created. 

"  If  the  New  Testament  be  true,  we  have  a  right  to  say  of 
humor,  as  of  all  other  universally  human  faculties — Hominus  est 
=  Ergo  Christi  est  =  P2rgo  Dei  est. 

"I  must  accept  this  in  its  fulness,  to  \\\\dXQ\QX seemingly  startling 
and  dangerous  result  it  may  lead  me,  or  my  theology  and  my 
anthropology  part  company,  and  then,  being  philosophically  unable 
to  turn  Manichee  (whether  Calvinist  or  Romanist),  the  modern 
Pantheism  would  be  the  only  alternative  ;  from  which  homeless 
and  bottomless  [)it  of  immoral  and  unphilosophical  private  judg 
mcnt  may  God  deliver  us  and  all  mankind.  And  you  will  see  thai 
into  that  Pantheism  men  will  rush  more  and  more  till  they  learn  id 
face  the  plain  statement  of  the  creed,  'And  He  was  mi>de  man,' 
and  the  Catholic  belief,  that  as  the  Son  of  man.  He  sits  now  o 
(rots)  ow/javot?,  and  on  the  very  throne  of  God.  Face  the  seeminglj 
coarse  anthropomorphism  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  believe  that  the 
INew  Testament  so  far  from  narrowing  it,  widens  and  deepens  it. 

•'  This  is  my  only  hope  and  stay,  while  I  see  belief  and  practice 
alike  rocking  and  reeling  to  decay.  May  God  keep  it  alive  in  me 
"♦ud  in  you,  recollecting  always  that  to  do  the  simple  right  thinf 


The  Alutiiiy  in  India.  275 

vvhich  lies  at  our  feet,  is  better  than  to  have  ascended  into  '±2  tljirJ 
heaven,  and  to  have  all  yvwo-is  and  all  mysteries. 

"  You  sign  yourself  by  a  very  noble  name.  Are  you  a  sou  o! 
that  good  and  wise  man  to  whose  lectures  about  Chara  and  Nitella  I 
have  listened  in  Quy-fen  eighteen  years  ago  ?  1  shall  be  happy  \\i 
hear  from  you  again." 

He  gave  many  lectures  in  the  diocese  this  autumn  for  Mechanics 
J-istitutes,  and  among  others  his  "Thoughts  in  a  Gravel  Pit,"  and 
one  on  "  Chaucer,"  also  a  long  promised  one  at  Bristol  on  "  Great 
Cities,  their  Influence  for  Good  and  Evil."  * 

He  was  just  now  engaged  on  a  volume  of  poems  for  publication, 
and  they  had  been  advertised  by  Messrs.  Parker  for  Christmas, 
But  while  preparing  them  for  the  press  he  was  asked  to  write  an 
article  on  Sanitary  reform.  This  work,  and  the  terrible  depression 
produced  on  his  mind  by  the  Indian  mutiny,  prevented  his  being 
ttble  to  get  them  ready  in  time.  The  agony  of  his  mind  as  the 
details  from  India  poured  in,  though  he  had  no  relatives  or  per- 
sonal friends  engaged  in  the  mutiny,  was  terrible,  and  he  writes  to 
Mr.  Bullar:— 

"...  Do  not  talk  to  me  about  India,  and  the  future  of  India, 
till  you  can  explain  the  past — the  past  six  months.  O  Bullar,  no 
njan   knows,    or  shall   know,   what   thoughts    they  have   cost    me. 

Meanwhile,  I  feel  as  if  I  could  dogmatise  no  more. 

I  dare  say  you  are  right  and  I  wrong.  I  have  no  heart,  at  least,  to 
continue  any  argument,  while  my  brain  is  filled  with  images  fresh 
out  of  hell  and  the  shambles.  Show  me  what  security  I  have  that 
my  wife,  my  children,  should  not  suffer,  from  some  unexpected 
outbreak  of  devils,  what  other  wives  and  children  have  suffered, 
and  then  1  shall  sleep  quiet,  without  longing  that  they  were  safe 
out  of  a  world  where  such  things  are  possible 

**  You  may  think  me  sinful  for  having  such  thoughts.  My  experi*. 
ence  ia,  that  when  they  come,  one  must  face  them,  do  battle  with 
them  deliberately,  be  patient  if  they  worst  one  for  a  while.  For  by 
ail  such  tilings  men  live,  in  these  is  the  life  of  the  spirit.  Only  by 
gr>iiig  down  into  hell  can  one  rise  again  the  third  day.  I  have  been 
in  hell  many  times  in  my  life  ;  therefore,  perhaps,  have  I  had  some 
small  power  of  iniiuencing  human  hearts.  But  I  never  have  looked 
liell  so  close  in  the  face  as  I  have  been  doing  of  late.  Wherefore 
I  hoj^e  thereby  to  get  fresh  power  to  rise,  and  to  lift  others  ht'aven- 
w.-^rd.     But  the  power  has  not  come  yet Anc'. 


*  Published  ia  the  •'  Miscelianiss." 


7y6  Char  Us  Kings  ley. 

I  can  only  cry,  '  O  Lord,  in  Thee  have  I  trusted,   let  me  never  b« 
confounded.     Wherefore  should  the  wicked  say,  where  is  now  his 

(xOd?' 

"  But  while  I  write  now,  and  while  I  fret  most,  there  comes  to 
me  an  inner  voice,  saying — What  matter  if  thou  art  confounded. 
God  is  not.  Only  believe  firmly  that  God  is  at  least  as  good  as 
ihou,  with  thy  'finite  reason,'  canst  conceive;  and  Ele  will  make 
thee  at  last  able  to  conceive  how  good  He  is,  and  tl  ou  shalt  have 
the  one  perfect  blessing  of  seeing  God, 

"You  will  say  I  am  inconsistent.  So  I  am;  and  so,  if  read 
honestly,  are  David's  Psalms.  Yet  that  very  inconsistency  is  wha{ 
brings  them  home  to  every  humar-  heart  for  ever.  The  words  of  a 
man  in  real  doubt  and  real  darkness,  crying  for  light,  and  not  cry- 
ing in  vain.     As  I  trust  I  shall  not.     God  bless  you." 

to  george  brimlev,  esq. 

everslev,  1857. 
"  Dear  Brimi,ey, 

"  Your  letter  has  much  comforted  me  ;  for  your  disapproval  is 
really  to  me  a  serious  thing,  from  what  I  know  of  your  critical 
powers  ;  while  my  own  hopeless  inability  to  judge  of  the  goodness 
or  badness  of  anything  I  write  makes  me  more  and  more  modest 
about  my  own  'ccsthesis.'  That  word  'masque'  I  will  omit  here- 
after. The  truth  is,  that  I  have  drawn,  modelled  in  clay,  and  pic- 
ture fancied,  so  much  in  past  years,  that  I  have  got  unconsciously 
into  tlie  slang — for  slang  it  is — and  I  am  faulty  therein. 

"  About  the  melodrama  on  the  Glyder,  I  quite  agree  with  you 
that  some  folks  will  carp.  There  was  a  cantankerous  lady  (1  heard 
who  she  was,  but  forget — why  not  ?)  who  attacked  me  fiercely  on 
that  score,  anent  '  Westward  Ho  ! '  She  knew  not  that  the  one 
point  which  infuriated  her  most,  viz.,  the  masts  and  sails  and  people 
looking  red-hot  against  a  black  background  instead  of  vice  versa, 
when  Amyas  is  struck  blind,  was  copied  from  the  experience  of  a 
near  relative  who  was  struck  senseless  by  a  flash  of  lightning,  and 
squinted  and  had  weak  eyes  for  years  after.  So  much  for  the  re- 
ward \\  hich  one  gets  for  copying  nature  ! 

"  In  the  Glyder  scene  1  have  copied  nature  most  carefully, 
liHving  surveyed  every  yard  of  the  ground  this  summer.  The  vision 
of  ifnowdon  towering  and  wet  against  tlie  background  of  blue  flame, 
api)earing  and  disappearing  every  moment,  was  given  me  by  Froude^ 
who  lived  there  three  years,  and  saw  it,  and  detailed  it  carefully, 
begging  me  to  put  it  in  !  IJut  •vhy  go  on  justifying  ?  I  don't  think 
the  deerstalkers  of  Park  Lar.e  and  ]Jelgravia  will  sneer,  because 
ihcy  see  such  things  in  their  field-sports,  and  are  delighted  when 
such  men  as  Maxwell  or  St.  John,  or  perhaps  I — for  they  have  told 
:ne  so  often — can    ?ut  tiiem  .nfo  words  for  them  :  but  the   tiTie 


N'ature s  ALlodj^uia.  277 

Bnubbers  are  the  cockneys  who  vvrite  for  the  press,  and  avIi:)  judge 
of  the  universe  from  the  experiences  of  the  London  subui  bs,  01  a 
siuiuner's  watering-place  trip.  I  have  seen  as  awful  sights  here  at 
the  breaking  up  of  a  long  drought;  and  what  I  wanted  to  do  was 
boldly  to  defy  criticism  on  that  very  point,  calling  the  chaptei 
'Nature's  Melodrama,'  and  showing,  meanwhile,  that  the'melo 
diamatic  element'  was  a  false,  and  morbid,  and  cowardly  one,  by 
biinging  in  Naylor  and  Wynd,  thinking  the  very  same  liorrors  oaf  i- 
lal  fun.  I  would  not  have  taken  Elsiey  there  if  1  had  not  taken 
them  there  also,  as  a  wholesome  foil  to  his  madness. 

"  Claude  and  Sabina  are  altogether  imaginary.  Ever  since 
'  Yeast,'  I  have  been  playing  with  them  as  two  dolls,  setting  them 
to  say  and  do  all  the  pretty  «cz/z'^  things  anyone  else  is  too  re- 
spectable to  be  sent  about,  till  1  know  them  as  well  as  I  know  you. 
I  have  half-a-dozen  pet  people  of  that  kind,  whom  I  make  talk  and 
walk  with  me  on  the  moors,  and  when  I  am  at  my  parish  work  ; 
md  charming  company  they  all  are,  only  they  get  more  and  more 
wilful,  being  '  spoilt  children,'  and  I  cannot  answer  for  any  despe- 
rate aberration  of  theirs,  either  in  doctrine  or  practice,  from  hour 
to  iiour.  Like  all  the  rest  of  human  life,  the  best  things  which  I 
get  out  of  tiiem  are  too  good  to  be  told.  So  nobody  will  ever  know 
them,  save  a  little  of  the  outside.  Writing  novels  is  a  farce  and  a 
sham.  If  any  man  could  write  the  simple  life  of  a  circle  of  live 
miles  round  his  own  house,  as  he  knew,  and  could  in  many  cases 
swear  it  to  be,  at  that  moment,  no  one  would  believe  it  ;  and  least 
of  all  would  those  believe  it  who  did  believe  it.  Do  you  ask  the 
meaning  of  the  paradox  ? 

"  Those  who  know  best  that  the  facts  are  true,  or  might  be  true, 
would  be  those  most  interested  in  declaring  them  impossible. 
When  any  man  or  woman  calls  anythmg  '  over-drawn,'  try  them,  if 
you  can,  by  the  argument — 

" '  Now,  confess.  Have  you  not  seen,  and  perhaps  done, 
stranger  things?'  And  in  proportion  to  their  honesty  and  genial- 
ity they  will  answer,  '  Yes.' 

*'  J.  have  i:ever  found  this  fail,  with  ^e^ple  ,vho  ^  \xc  hnnian,  and 
wfre  capable  of  ha'  ng  any  'history'  it  all." 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

1858. 
Aged  39. 

Efcrsley  \Vo;k — Diphtheria — Lectures  and  Sermons  at  Aldershot — Blessing  th« 
Colois  of  the  22nd  Regiment — Staff  College — Advanced  Thinkers — Poemt 
and  Santa  Maura — Let'.er  from  Dr.  Monsell — Letters  to  Dr.  Monsell,  Deau 
Stanley,  &c. — Letter  from  Captain  Congreve — Birth  of  his  Son  Grenviiis — 
Second  Visit  to  Yorkshire. 

This  was  a  year  of  severe  work  and  anxiety,  for  he  could  no*, 
afford  a  curate.  Diphtheria,  then  a  new  disease  in  England,  ap- 
peared in  the  neighborhood,  and  was  very  fatal.  It  created  a 
panic,  and  to  hini  it  was  a  new  enemy  to  be  hated,  and  fought 
against,  as  it  was  his  wont  to  hate  and  fight  against  every  form  of 
disease,  and  especially  those  which  he  suspected  to  come  from 
malaria,  and  other  preventable  causes.  Its  prevalence  an.ong 
children,  and  cases  in  his  own  parish,  affected  and  excited  him, 
and  he  took  counsel  with  medical  men,  as  to  how  to  meet  the 
earliest  symptoms  of  the  new  foe.  When  it  reached  Eversley, 
some  might  have  smiled  at  seeing  him,  going  in  and  out  of  the  cot- 
tages with  great  bottles  of  gargle  under  his  arm,  and  teaching  the 
people — men,  women,  and  chiklrcn,  to  gargle  their  throats,  as  a 
preventive  ;  but  to  him  it  was  terrible  grim  earnest,  acting  as  he 
did  on  Thomas  Carlyle's  principle,  "  Wheresoever  thou  findest 
(iis(jrdcr,  there  is  thy  eternal  enemy  ;  attack  him  swiftly,  subdue 
him,  niake  order  of  him." 

Hi?  work  for  tlie  Hants  and  Wilts  Education  Society,  to  which 
lie  had  bound  himself  to  give  so  many  lectures  annually,  in  lieu  uf 
subscription,  was  heavy  ;  he  lectured  on  local  geology,  on  Chau- 
cer, on  Jack  of  Newbury,  and  Flodden  Field,  and  on  the  Days  .)f 
the  Week  ;  in  those  days  seldom  repeating  the  same  lecture.  Tht 
position  of  Even-ley  with  regard  to  Chobham,  Aldershot,  and 
Sandhurst,  brought  him  more  and  more  in  contact  with  military 
li"*-!,  and  widened  his  sphere  of  influence.     The  society  of  soldiers 


The  Soldier  Spirit.  279 

as  a  diss  was  congenia'  to  him.  He  inherited  much  of  the  so'.diei 
spirit,  as  he  inherited  soldier  blood  ;  and  the  few  of  his  direct  an- 
cestors' portraits  that  have  survived  the  wreck  of  his  family,  are  all 
of  men  in  uniform,  including,  with  others  of  earlier  date,  General 
Kingsley,  Governor  of  Fort  William,  colonel  of  the  20th  Regiment, 
who  fought  at  the  battle  of  Minden ;  and  among  the  family  papers 
there  are  commissions  with  the  signature  of  the  reigning  authori- 
ties. He  had  himself,  at  one  time,  thought  of  the  army  as  a  pro- 
fession, and  had  spent  much  time  as  a  boy  in  drawing  plans  of 
fortifications  ;  and  after  he  took  holy  orders  it  was  a  constant  occu- 
pation to  him,  in  all  his  walks  and  rides,  to  be  planning  fortifications. 
There  is  scarcely  a  hill-side  within  twenty  miles  of  Eversley,  the 
strong  and  weak  points  of  which  in  attack  and  defence  during 
a  possible  invasion,  he  has  not  gone  over  with  as  great  an  intensity 
of  thought  and  interest  as  if  the  enemy  were  really  at  hand  \  and 
no  soldier  could  have  read  and  re-read  Hannibal's  campaigns, 
Creasy' s  Sixteen  decisive  battles,  the  records  of  Sir  Charles  Na- 
pier's Indian  warfare,  or  Sir  William's  magnificent  history  of  the 
Peninsular  War,  with  keener  appreciation,  his  poet's  imagination 
enabling  him  to  fill  u[)  the  picture  and  realize  the  scene,  where  hi? 
knowledge  of  mere  military  detail  failed.  Hence  the  honor  ho 
esteemed  it  to  be  allowed  to  preach  to  the  troops  at  Alders>hot, 
and  to  lecture  to  military  men  there  and  at  Woolwich.  His  eyes 
would  kindle  and  fill  with  tears  as  he  recalled  the  impression  made 
on  him  on  Whit  Sunday,  1858,  by  the  sound  heard  for  the  first 
time,  and  never  to  be  forgotten,  of  the  clank  of  the  officers'  swords 
and  spurs,  and  the  regular  tramp  of  the  men  as  they  marched  into 
church,  stirring  him  like  the  sound  of  a  trumpet.  He  lectured  this 
year,  too,  to  the  troops  in  the  camp  on  Cortez.  He  was  also 
asked  by  Mrs.  William  Napier  to  bless  the  new  colors  which  she 
presented  to  her  father's  old  regiment,  the  22nd,  of  which  Sir 
Charles  Napier  himself  had  spoken  when  he,  as  its  distinguished 
colonel,  presented  colors  to  the  ist  battalion  somt  yc'ar.s 
before  : 

"  That  brave  regiment  which  won  the  battle  of  Meanee — won 
the  battle  of  Hydrabad — won  Scinde  for  England ;  .  ,  .  . 
the  regiment  which  stood  by  the  King  of  England  at  Dettingen. 
stood  by  the  celebraled  Lord  Peterborough  at  Barcelona;  and 
into  t'le  arms  of  whose  grenadiers  the  immortal  Wolfe  [t\\  ( r i   tile 


28o  Charles  Kings  ley. 

heights  of  Abraham.     Well  may  I  exult  in  the  command  of  such  a 
regiment."     (Life  of  Sir  Charles  Napier.) 

After  the  ceremony,  Mrs.  Napier  went  round  the  ranks,  among 
which  were  many  old  veterans  who  had  survived  from  the  great 
Indian  battles,  in  which  her  father  commanded  th^m  in  the  field, 
and  introduced  Mr.  Kingsley  to  them.  That  too  was  a  red  letter 
in  his  calendar,  as  he  called  it.  He  camped  out  a  night  this  sum- 
mer with  the  Guards  on  Cove  Common.  His  sermons  in  camp 
brought  many  ofiicers  over  to  Eversley  Church,  and  led  to  the 
formation  of  friendshios  which  were  very  dear  to  him.  During  the 
earlier  years  of  the  Staff  College,  Sandhurst,  of  which  his  valued 
friend  General  William  Napier  was  commandant,  he  was  often 
invited  to  mess,  and  was  received  with  a  marked  respect,  which  did 
a.s  much  honor  to  his  hosts  as  to  their  guest.  That  he  never 
shrunk  from  showing  his  colors,  the  following  reminiscence  from 
one  who  was  present  will  testify  : — 

"We  had  among  us  one  or  two  so-called  '  advanced  thinkers,' 
men  who  were  inclined  to  ridicule  religion  somewhat.  I  remem- 
ber once  the  conversation  at  mess  took  that  direction,  and  Mr. 
Kingsley  stopped  it  at  once  and  forever  in  the  pleasantest,  and  aj 
the  same  time  most  effectual  manner,  by  pointing  out  how  unmanly 
and  ungenerous  it  was  to  endeavor  to  weaken  a  faith  which  was  a 
trusted  support  to  one's  friends.  He  said  it  was  impossible  to  use 
arguments  of  this  kind  without  causing  pain  to  some,  and  even  if  a 
man  could  hope  to  produce  conviction,  it  could  only  be  by  taking 
from  his  convert  much  of  the  present  joy  of  his  life.  Would  any  brave 
man  desire  to  do  that  for  the  mere  sake  of  a  rhetorical  triumph  ? 
There  was  the  regular  little  apology,  'Forgot  for  a  moment  that 
there  was  a  clergyman  at  the  table,'  &c. 

"  '  All  right,  never  mind,  but  you  must  not  apologize  on  that 
ground.  We  are  paid  to  fight  those  arguments  as  you  soldiers  are 
to  do  another  sort  of  fighting,  and  if  a  clergyman  is  worth  his  salt, 
you  will  always  find  him  ready  to  try  a  fall  with  you.  Besides,  it  is 
I  I'tter  for  your  friends,  if  they  are  to  have  the  poison,  to  have  the 
anlidote  in  the  same  spoon.'  " 

Early  this  year  his  poems  were  published,  and  among  theua 
"  Santa  Maura,"  which  had  a  powerful  effect  on  thoughtful  people  ; 
the  story  being  so  little  known. 

*'  I  am  delighted,"  he  says  to  Mr.  Maurice,  "  that  you  are  satfs 
6«".'  with  '  St  Maura.'     Nothing  which   I  ever  wrote  came  so  out 


.5*/   Maura.  281 

of  the  depths  of  my  soul  as  that,  or  caused  me  during  writing  (il 
was  all  done  in  a  day  and  a  night)  a  poetic  fervor  such  as  I  never 
felt  before  or  since.  It  seemed  to  me  a  sort  of  inspiration  which  1 
could  not  resist  ;  and  the  way  to  do  it  came  before  me  clearly  and 
instantly,  as  nothing  else  ever  has  done.  To  embody  the  highest 
spiritual  nobleness  in  the  greatest  possible  simplicity  of  a  young 
village  girl,  and  exhibit  the  martyr  element,  not  only  free  from 
that  celibate  element  which  is  so  jumbled  up  with  it  in  the  old 
myths ;  but  brought  out  and  brightened  by  marriage  love.  That 
story,  as  it  stands  in  the  Acta  SS.,  has  always  been  my  experimen- 
turn  crucis  of  the  false  connection  between  martyrdom  and  celibacy. 

But  enough  of  this  selfish  prosing I  have  no  novel 

in  my  head  just  now.  I  have  said  my  say  for  the  time,  and  I  want 
to  sit  down  and  become  a  learner,  not  a  teacher,  for  I  am  chiefly 
impressed  with  my  own  profound  ignorance  and  hasty  assumption 
on  every  possible  subject." 

The  volume  of  poems  led  to  his  first  communication  with  Dr. 
Monsell,  who  writes  : — 

GuLVAL  Vicarage,  Penzance,  April  14,  1858. 
"  Rev.  and  dear  Sir, 

"  I  have  read  with  wondrous  delight  your  beautiful  book  of 
poetry  just  come  out,  and  thank  you  most  sincerely  for  a  great 
deal  of  it  as  a  source  of  very  pure  pleasure,  and  a  great  deal  of  it 
as  very  deep  and  earnest  teaching  in  holy  things.  One  poem 
especially  I  thank  God  for,  that  entitled  '  St.  Maura.'  I  could 
wish  that  sent  out  into  the  world  by  itself,  as  a  little  tract,  to  be 
slipt  into  the  hands  of  the  suffering,  or  of  those  who  are  sometimes 
in  the  midst  of  great  blessings  disposed  to  make  too  much  of  the 
little  trials  they  are  called  on  to  endure.  It  would  strengthen  and 
brace  up  to  high  endeavors  and  endurings  many  who  now  little 
dream  of  what  real  endurance  for  the  love  of  Christ  means.  I 
know  it  was  so  with  me  the  other  day.  I  had  heard  from  home  of 
some  i)arish  vexations,  which  pained  me  far  more  than  any  earthly 
ill  sliould  do.  I  took  up  that  dear  book,  read  that  one  poem  for 
the  first  time  aloud  to  my  wife  and  children,  and  as  I  laid  it  down 
with  tears  in  my  eyes,  could  smile  through  those  tears  at  any  little 
cross  I  had  to  bear  for  my  dear  Master's  sake.  What  it  has  done 
for  me  I  am  sure  it  w^ill  do  for  thousands,  and  therefore  I  have 
ventured  to  tell  you  how  God  has  blessed  it  to  me. 

"  May  He  strengthen  and  bless  you  in  your  noble  endeavors  to 
glorify  Him  and  benefit  your  race  is  the  sincere  prayer  of  one  whc 
haii  been  much  benefited  by  your  writings. 

"Yours  most  laithfully, 

"  John  S.  B.  Monsell. 

"  (Vicar  of  Egham.)" 


2  82  Charles  Kingsley. 

\ 

The  answer  is  characteristic  : — 

EVERSLEY,  April  i,   185?, 

"  My  Dear  Sir, 

"  Your  letter  gave  me  the  most  lively  pleasure,  and  all  the 
more  lively,  because  it  came  from  you,  whose  spiritual  poems  have 
been  a  delight  and  comfort  in  a  time  of  anxiety  to  my  dear  wife. 

'*  Would  to  God  that  I  could  be  the  persons  that  I  can  conceive. 
If  you  wisli  to  pray  against  a  burden  and  temptation,  pray  againsi 
that  awful  gift  (for  it  is  a  purely  involuntary  gift)  of  imagination, 
which  alternately  flatters  and  torments  its  possessor, — flatters  him 
by  making  him  fancy  that  he  possesses  the  virtues  which  he  can 
imagine  in  others ;  torments  him,  because  it  makes  him  feel  in  him- 
self a  capacity  for  every  imaginable  form  of  vice.  Yet  if  it  be  a 
gift  of  God's  (and  it  cannot  be  a  gift  of  the  devil's)  it  must  bring 
some  good,  and  perhaps  the  good  is  the  capacity  for  sympathy 
with  blackguards,  '  publicans  and  sinners,'  as  we  now  euphemize 
them  in  sermons,  trying,  as  usual,  to  avoid  the  tremendous  mean- 
ing of  the  words  by  borrowing  from  an  old  English  translation. 
To  see  into  the  inner  life  of  these ;  to  know  their  disease,  not  from 
books,  but  from  inward  and  scientific  anatomy,  imagination  may 
help  a  man.  If  it  does  that  for  me  1  shall  not  regret  it ;  though  it 
is,  selfishly  speaking,  the  most  humiliating  and  tormenting  of  all 
talents. 

"  God  be  with  you  and  yours, 

*'  C.  Kingsley." 

TO    REV.    ARTHUR   PENRHYN    STANLEY. 

EVERSLEY,  April  lO,   1858. 

"  My  Dear  Stanley, — 

"  I  must  write  and  tell  you  the  perfect  pleasure  with  which  I 
have  read  your  three  lectures  on  Ecclesiastical  History,  which  that 
excellent  fellow,  Edward  Egerton,  lent  me. 

''  It  is  a  comfort  in  this  dreary  world  to  read  anything  so  rational 
and  fair,  so  genial  and  human  ;  and  if  those  Oxford  youths  aie 
not  the  better  men  for  such  talk,  they  deserve  the  pool  of  Hela. 

"  \Vhat  you  say  about  learning  ecclesiastical  history  by  biograph) 
is  most  true.  I  owe  all  I  really  know  about  the  history  of  Chrisli- 
anitv  (ante  Tridentine),  to  thumbing  and  re-thumbing  a  copy  of 
*  Siirius'  Actce  Sanctorum.'  In  that  book  I  found  out  for  the  first 
time  in  my  life  'what  they  were  all  about,'  But  you  have,  from 
your  great(;r  knowledge,  and  wider  view,  a  spirit  of  hope  about  it 
all,  which  sadly  fails  me  at  times  ;  and  therefore  your  lectures 
have  done  me  good ;  and  I  thank  you  for  them,  as  for  personal 
and  private  consolation  wliich  1  sorely  wanted.  God  bless  you 
and  prospc/  you  and  yojr  words." 


Sunday  Amusements.  283 

Among  the  many  pleasant  friendships  formed  at  this  time,  which 
sprung  out  of  the  Eversley  Church  services,  was  that  of  Captain 
Congreve,  who  thus  re;alls  those  Sundays  : — 

"  It  was  in  the  spring  of  1858  that  Capt.,  now  Colonel,  Jebb,  ol 
tlie  67th,  and  I  first  began  to  go  to  Eversley  Church.  We  used  to 
walk  over  on  Sunday  mornings  after  breakfast,  and  then  lia/e 
some  bread  and  cheese  at  the  little  public  house  in  the  village  after 
church. 

"  There  we  discussed  with  our  host,  the  parson  and  the  village 
generally,  and  I  remember  his  amusing  us  very  much  once,  when 
referring  to  some  cricket  to  be  played  in  the  afternoon,  by  saying, 
'Eh,  Paason,  he  doan't  objec' — not  ee — as  loik  as  not  'e'il  coom 
and  look  on,  and  ee  do  tell  'em  as  its  a  deal  better  to  'ave  a  bit 
o'  ekhy  play  o'  a  Sunday  evenin'  than  to  be  a-larkin'  'ere  and 
a-larkiii  there  hall  hover  the  place  a-courtin'  and  a-drinkin'  hale.' 

"  Mr.  Kingsley  soon  observed  the  two  new  faces  in  his  churcn, 
and  spoke  to  us  one  Sunday  after  service.  From  that  time  I  think 
we  were  pretty  constant  guests  at  your  Sunday  luncheon-table.  I 
shall  never  forget  the  genial,  happy,  unreserved  intercourse  of 
those  Sunday  afternoons,  and  I  never  strolled  home  to  mess  with- 
out feeling  that  I  had  come  away  wiser  and  better  from  the  con- 
tact  with  that  clear  and  kindly  mind.  He  essentially  loved  men 
and  manly  pursuits,  and  perhaps  liked  soldiers,  as  being  a  class 
among  whom  manly  feeling  and  many  virtues  were  cultivated. 

"  The  Staff  College  was  then  in  its  infancy,  and  had  perhaps 
gathered  together  a  few  of  the  best  educated,  hardest  working,  and 
most  ambitious  young  men  in  the  service. 

"  Mr.  Kingsley  was  very  soon  a  welcome  and  an  honored  guest 
at  our  mess.  He  entered  into  our  studies,  popularised  our  geol- 
ogy, and  was  an  able  critic  on  questions  of  military  history.  Not 
only  that,  however, — head  work  needs  physical  relaxation.  He 
told  us  the  best  meets  of  the  hounds,  the  nearest  cut  to  the  cover, 
(he  best  trout  streams,  and  the  home  of  the  largest  pike.  Many 
an  hour  have  I  spent  pleasantly  and  profitably  on  the  CoUtge 
lakes  with  him.  Every  fiy  that  lit  on  the  boat-side,  every  bir  of 
weed  that  we  fished  up,  every  note  of  wood-bird,  was  suggestive  of 
some  pretty  bit  of  infoniation  on  the  habits,  and  growth,  and 
breeding  of  the  thousand  mnoticed  forms  of  life  around. 

"  Yours  truly, 

"  W.  Congreve," 

His  youngest  soi,,  Grenville  Arthur,  for  whom,  in  the  course  of 
time,  "The  Waterbabies "  and  "Madame  How"  were  written, 
was  born  this  spring,  and  named  afte'  his  godfather,  Dtan  Stanley 


284  Charles  Kingsley, 

and  Sir  Richard  Grenvil,  one  of  the  heroes  of  "Westward  Hoi" 
from  whom  Mrs.  Kingsley' s  family  claimed  descent. 

A  new  novel  was  now  projected  on  the  subject  of  the  Pilgrimagi 
of  Grace,  which  made  it  necessary  for  him  to  go  into  Yorkshire  for 
a  few  days  to  identify  places  and  names.  This  was  his  only  holi' 
day  for  the  year,  and  thanks  to  the  kindness  of  his  friend,  Mr.  (now 
the  Rt.  Hon.)  E.  Forster,  and  Mr.  Morrison,  of  Malham,  it  was  a 
very  charming  one,  combining  antiquities,  manufactures,  scenery, 
and  fishing,  with  the  facts  he  had  to  make  out.  The  novel  was 
paitly  written,  but  never  finished. 

BuRLEY,  Wharfside,  July,  1858. 

"  At  a  most  delicious  place,  and  enjoying  good  society  and  a 

good    hbrary,   with  some  very  valuable  books Tell 

the  children  I  have  just  seen — oh  !  I  don't  know  what  I  hav'nt 
seen — the  largest  water-wheel  in  England,  making  light  summer 
over-coats  for  the  Yankees  and  Germans.  I  am  in  a  state  of 
bewilderment — such  machinery  as  no  tongue  can  describe,  about 
three  acres  of  mills  and  a  whole  village  of  people,  looking  healthy, 
rosy,  and  happy  ;  such  a  charming  half-time  school  for  the  children, 
library  for  the  men,  &c.  Tell  R.  I  saw  the  wool  as  it  came  oflf 
the  sheep's  back  in  Leicestershire,  followed  it  till  it  was  turned 
into  an  'alpaca'  coat,  and  I  don't  care  to  see  conjuring  or  magic 
after  that.     The  country  is  glorious '' 

"  We  had  a  delighftul  day  at  Bolton  yesterday,  and  saw  the  Abbey. 
Tell  R.  I  jumped  over  the  Strid  where  young  Romilly  was  drowned. 
Make  her  learn  Wordsworth's  ballad  on  it,  '  What  is  good  for  a 
bootless  bene'  ?  " 

After  his  return  home  a  lady  of  an  old  Roman  Catholic  family 
sent  him  through  a  mutual  friend  some  curious  facts  for  his  book, 
but  expressed  her  fears  that  his  strong  Protestant  sympathies  would 
prevent  his  doing  justice  to  her  co-ieligionists.  He  thus  acknowl- 
edges her  help  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  C.  Kegan  Paul  : — 

EvERSLEV,  Octobtr,  i85S>. 

*'  Will  you  thank  Mrs.  *  *  *  *  most  heartily  froui  me  for  all  she  has 
found  out  for  me.  The  Merlin's  prophecy  about  Aske  is  invaluable. 
The  Miltons  I  don't  kr.ow  of,  and  would  gladly  know.  The  York 
documents  about  the  Pilgrimage  of  Grace  have  got,  I  hear,  ta 
Durliam,  at  least  there  are  none  to  be  found  in  the  Chai)ter  Librar) 
at  York. 


yustice  to  the  Catholics.  285 

"  But  let  her  understand — if  it  be  any  comfort  to  her—  that  I  shall 
in  this  book  do  the  northern  Catholics  ample  justice  ;  that  Robert 
and  Christopher  Aske,  both  good  Romanists,  are  my  heroes,  and 
Robert  the  Rebel  my  special  hero.  I  can't  withdraw  what  I  said 
in  '  Westward  Ho,'  because  it  is  true.  Romanism  under  the  Jesuits 
became  a  different  thing  from  what  it  had  been  before.  Of  course 
Mrs.  *  *  *  *  does  not  know  that,  and  why  should  she  ? 

"  Jiut  I  fear  she  will  be  as  angry  as  ever,  though  really  she  is 
most  merciful  and  liberal,  at  my  treatment  of  the  monks.  I  love 
the  old  Catholic  Laity  :  I  did  full  justice  to  their  behavior  at  the 
Armxda  juncture;  but  I  know  too  much  of  those  shavelings,  and 
the  worst  is,  I  know,  as  Wolsey  knew,  and  every  one  knew,  things 
one  dare'nt  tell  the  world,  much  less  a  woman.  So  judgment  must 
go  by  default,  as  I  cannot  plead,  for  decency's  sake.  Still,  tell  her 
that  had  I  been  born  and  bred  a  Yorkshire  Catholic,  I  should 
oiobably — unless  I  had  been  a  coward — have  fought  to  the  last 
d."op  at  Robert  Aske's  side.  But  this  philosophy  only  gives  one  a 
liabit  of  feeling  for  every  one,  witho  it  feeling  with  them,  and  I  can 
now  lo^'e  Robert  Aske,  though  I  thii  k  him  as  wro  g  as  \i\zxi  can  be, 
who  is  y  good  man  and  true." 


CHAPTER   XIX. 

1859. 

Aged  40. 

Ssuitary  W«rk — First  Sermon  at  Buckingham  Palace — Queen's  Chaplaincy— 
First  Visit  to  Windsor — Letter  to  an  Atheist — Correspondenct.  with  Artists- 
Charles  Bennett — Ladies'  Sanitary  Association — Letter  from  John  Stuart 
Mill. 

As  years  went  on  he  devoted  time,  thought,  and  influence  more  and 
more  to  Sanitary  science ;  the  laws  of  health,  and  the  enfranchise- 
ment of  men's  bodies  from  disease  and  dirt,  and  their  inevitable 
consequences  of  sin,  misery,  and  physical  if  not  spiritual  death, 
became  more  important  in  his  eyes  than  any  Political  reforms.  He 
lectured  at  the  different  institutes  in  the  diocese  of  Winchester  on 
the  laws  of  health,  rather  than  on  literary  and  scientific  matters, 
and  attended  the  first  public  meeting  in  Willis's  Rooms  of  ihe 
Ladies'  National  Sanitary  Association,  where  he  made  a  speech 
that  was  afterwards  published  under  the  title  of  "  The  Massacre  of 
the  Innocents." 

This  year,  1859,  was  an  altogether  important  one  to  him.  On 
Palm  Sunday  he  preached  for  the  first  time  before  the  Queen  and 
the  Prince  Consort  at  Buckingham  Palace,  and  was  shortly  after- 
wards made  one  of  Her  Majesty's  chaplains  in  ordinary.  He  now 
took  his  turn  as  Queen's  Chaplain  in  the  services  at  the  Chapci 
Royal,  St.  James's,  and  preached  in  the  autumn  before  the  Couit 
in  the  private  chapel  at  Windsor  Castle.  On  this  occasion  he  ind 
tiiij  honor  of  being  presented  to  the  Queen  and  the  Prince  Consort, 
and  to  the  Crown  Prince  and  Princess  of  Prussia,  then  staying  at 
Windsor,  and  from  that  hour  to  his  dying  day  he  received  marks  of 
Royal  kindness  and  condescension,  the  memory  of  which  will  be  an 
heirloom  to  his  children.  To  a  man  of  his  fine  imagination  and 
deep  loyalty,  who  had  sounded  the  depths  of  society,  and  whose 
increasing  popularity  as  an  author,  and  power  as  a  preacher,  had 
given  him  a  large  acquaintance  with  all  ranks,  this  new  phase  if 


Marriage  of  Max  Muller.  28; 

his  life  seemed  to  come  just  to  complete  the  cycle  of  his  experi- 
ences. But  while  its  result  was,  in  a  certain  sense,  to  establish  his 
position  and  enlarge  his  influence,  on  ;is  own  character  it  had  a 
humbHng  rather  than  exalting  effect.  From  this  time  there  was  a 
niaiked  difference  in  the  tone  of  the  public  press,  religious  and 
(jihervvise,  towards  him  :  and  though  he  siiU  waged  war  as  hereto- 
fore against  bigotry,  ignorance,  and  intolerance,  and  was  himself 
unclianged,  the  attacks  on  him  from  outside  were  less  frequent  and 
less  bitter. 

The  events  of  this  year,  uninteresting  to  the  outside  world,  but 
each  important  to  himself  in  giving  color  to  his  daily  life  and  leav 
ing  its  own  mark  on  his  heart  and  imagination,  are  soon  told. 
He  sent  his  eldest  son  to  Wellington  College,  which  had  opened  in 
the  winter,  and  where  the  scheme  of  education,  due  much  to  the 
wise  influence  of  the  Frince  Consort,  was  more  consonant  to  his 
own  views  for  his  son,  being  of  a  wider  and  more  modern  character 
than  that  of  the  older  and  more  venerable  public  schools.  He  was 
present  at  the  marriage  of  his  friend  Max  Muller  and  a  beloved 
niece,*  who  spent  the  first  week  of  their  married  life  at  Eversley 
Rectory  ;  and  he  preached  them  their  wedding  sermon,  giving  them 
their  first  communion  in  his  own  church.  Dean  Stanley  (then 
Canon  of  Christ  Church,  Oxford)  paid  his  first  visit  to  Eversley. 
His  acquaintance  with  Lord  Cranworth  and  with  Lord  Carnarvon, 
to  whom  he  became  more  and  more  attached  as  time  went  on,  was 
made  this  year.  In  the  autumn,  with  his  wife,  he  spent  a  few  days 
with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Tennyson  in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  but  having  no 
curate,  his  holiday  was  short,  and  more  than  once  he  broke  dowr 
from  overwork  ;  the  excitement  too  of  the  Sundays,  and  his  ful 
church,  overpowered  him.  He  shrunk  from  the  bustle  of  London, 
refused  all  sermons  there,  and  withdrew  from  politics. 

"  T  have  not  been  to  town,"  he  said,  "for  more  than  two  daj'sin 
the  last  nine  months.  I  see  no  chance  of  preaching  there,  I  am 
happy  to  say,  for  a  long  time,  save  next  Sunday,  when  I  preach  to 
tne  Qiieen,  As  for  politics,  I  heed  them  not.  The  only  politician 
now  living  is  the  Lord  of  all ;  and  He  has  principle  and  principles  : 

•  fhf  G.  to  whom  the  lines  weie  written  beginning — 
"  A  hasty  jest  I  on  :e  let  fall, 
As  jests  are  wont  to  be,  untrue." — To  G.,       Fjems,"  p.  i  \fi 


288  Charles  Kingsley. 

whoijvei  has  not.     It  is  a  fearful  lookout  when  God  has  to  govern 

a  nation  because  it  cannot  govern  itself.     .     .     .     ." 

Notwithstanding  fair  prospects  and  outward  distinction,  he  dung 
more  rind  more  passionately  to  his  country  home — the  "far  off 
\oo«,"  and  longing  for  rest  and  reality,  and  for  the  unfolding  of 
tiKj  mj  stery  of  life  grew  stronger  upon  him,  and  he  said  more  fre- 
quently to  his  wife  "  How  blessed  it  will  be  when  it  is  all  over  !  '■ 
Vrith  his  children,  however,  he  was  always  bright  and  merry.  To 
his  friend,  Mr.  Tom  Hughes,  he  writes  this  summer,  on  the  1 2th 
of  June  : — 

"  This  is  my  fortieth  birthday.  What  a  long  life  I  have  lived  ! 
and  silly  fellows  that  review  me  say  that  I  can  never  have  known 
Ul-health  or  sorrow.  I  have  known  enough  to  make  me  feel  very 
old — happy  as  I  am  now  ;  and  I  am  very  happy " 

A  correspondence  with  an  intelligent  artizan,  an  avowed  athei.st, 
and  editor  of  an  atheist  newspaper  in  one  of  the  manufacturing 
towns  in  the  north,  is  unfortunately  lost,  with  the  exception  of  Mr. 
Kingsley's  last  letter,  in  answer  to  one  telling  him  that  his  corre- 
spondent had  in  common  with  his  class  read  "  Alton  Locke," 
•'  Yeast,"  and  "  Hypatia,"  with  interest,  from  "  their  freshness  of 
thought  and  honesty,  which  seemed  to  place  them  above  the  fac- 
tions of  creed,  while  breathing  the  same  spirit  of  Christian  kind- 
ness which  Fenelon  and  Dr.  Arnold  practised."  *'  Such  perusal,' 
he  added,  "  makes  us  better  men." 

EVERSLEY,  January  15,  1859, 
«'  My  Dear  Sir, 

"  I  should  have  answered  so  frank  and  manly  a  letter  before, 
but  my  father's  sudden  and  severe  illness  called  me  away  from 
home.  I  ho[)e  that  you  and  your  friends  will  not  always  remain 
A.thei;>ts.  .  .  .  It  i")  a  barren,  heartless,  hopeless  creed,  as  a 
creed — though  a  man  may  live  long  in  it  without  being  heartless 
or  hopeless  himself.  Still,  he  will  never  be  the  man  he  ought  to 
have  been  ;  and  therefore  it  is  bad  for  him  and  not  good.  Bui 
what  I  want  to  say  to  you  is  this,  and  I  do  want  to  say  it.  \Vliat- 
ever  doubt  or  doctrinal  Atheism  you  and  your  friends  may  have, 
don't  fall  into  moral  Atheism.  Don't  forget  the  Eternal  Goodness, 
whatever  name  you  may  cah  it.  I  call  it  God.  Or  if  you  even 
leny  an  Eternal  Goodness,  don't  forget  or  neglect  such  goodness 
v&  you  find  in  yourselves — not  an  honest,   a  manly,  a  loving,  a 


An  Illustrated  Pilgrims  Progress.         289 

generous,  a  patient  feeling.  For  your  own  sakes,  if  not  foi  God's 
sake,  keep  alive  in  you  the  sense  of  what  is,  and  you  know  to  be, 
good,  noble,  and  beautiful.  I  don't  mean  beautiful  in  'art,'  but 
beautiful  in  morals.  If  you  will  keep  that  moral  sense — that  sense 
of  the  beauty  of  goodness,  and  of  man's  absolute  duty  to  be  good, 
then  all  will  be  as  God  wills,  and  all  will  come  right  at  last.  But 
if  you  lose  that — if  you  begin  to  say,  '  Why  should  not  1  be  quar- 
lelsome  and  revengeful?  why  should  I  not  be  conceited  and  inso- 
lent? why  should  1  not  be  selfish  and  grasping?  then  you  will  be 
Atheists  mdeed,  and  what  to  say  to  you  1  shall  not  know.  But 
from  your  letter,  and  from  the  very  look  of  your  handwiiting,  I 
augur  better  things ;  and  even  hope  that  you  will  not  think  me  im^ 
pertinent  if  I  send  you  a  volume  of  my  own  Sermons  to  think  ovei 
manfully  and  fairly.  It  seems  to  me  (but  I  may  Hatter  myself) 
that  you  cannot  like,  as  you  say  you  do,  my  books,  and  yet  be 
what  I  call  moral  Atheists. 

"  Mind,  if  there  is  anything  in  this  letter  which  offends  you,  don'1 
take  fire,  but  write  and  ask  me  (if  you  think  it  worth  while)  what  I 
mean.  In  looking  it  through  I  see  several  things  which  (owing  to 
the  perversion  of  religious  phrases  in  these  days)  you  may  mis 
understand,  and  take  your  friend  for  your  foe. 

"  At  all  events,  I  am,  yours  faithfully, 

"  Charles  Kingsley." 

Artists  now  often  consulted  him,  and  among  them  Charles  Henry 
Bennett,  a  man  full  of  genius,  then  struggling  with  poverty  and  the 
needs  of  a  large  young  family,  who  began  by  illustrating  children's 
books,  then  went  on  the  staff  of  "  Punch,"  and  died  a  few  years 
since,  greatly  regretted.  His  letters,  followed  by  a  visit  to  Evers- 
ley,  led  to  Mr.  Kingsley's  offering  to  write  him  a  preface  to  an 
Illustrated  Pilgrim's  Progress,  for  which  he  had  some  difficulty  in 
getting  a  publisher,  but  on  this  offer  Messrs.  Longman  undertook 
lo  bring  out  the  work  at  once. 


TO   CHARLES    H.    BENNETT,  ESQ. 

EvERSLEY,  January  2*3,  1S59. 

".  .  .  I  feel  as  deeply  as  you  our  want  of  a  fitting  illustra 
lion  of  the  great  Puritan  Epic,  and  agree  in  every  word  which  you 
say  about  past  attempts.  Your  own  plan  is  certainly  the  right  one, 
only  in  trying  for  imaginative  freedom,  do  not  lose  sight  of  beauty 
of  form.  I  am,  in  taste,  a  strong  classicist,  contrary  to  the  reign 
ing  school  of  Ruskin,  Pugin,  and  the  pre-Raphaelites,  and  wait 
quietly  for  the  world  to  come  round  to  me  again.  But  it  is  per- 
fectly pf<ssiMe  to  coir.bine  Greek  health  and  accuracy  of  form,  with 


290  Charles  Kings  ley. 

flerman  freedom  of  iinagination,  even  with  German  grotesqueness 
[  say  Greek  and  German  (i.e.,  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centurt 
German)  because  those  two  are  the  only  two  root-schools  in  the 
world.  I  know  no  such  combination  of  both  as  in  Kaulbach,  His 
illustrations  of  Reinecke  Fuchs  are  in  my  eyes  the  finest  designs 
(save  those  of  three  or  four  great  Italians  of  the  sixteenth  century) 
wi'irh  the  world  has  ever  seen.  Any  man  desiring  to  do  an  endur 
ing  'vork,  must  study,  copy,  and  surpass  them. 

'•  Now  in  Jiunyan  there  is  a  strong  German  (Albert  Durer)  cle- 
liient  which  you  must  express,  viz.,  ist,  a  tendency  to  the  gro 
'.csque  in  imagination  ;  2nd,  a  tendency  to  si)irltual  portraiture  of 
tlie  highest  kind,  in  which  an  ideal  character  is  brought  out,  not  by 
abstracting  all  individual  traits  (the  Academy  plan),  but  by  throw- 
ing in  strong  individual  traits  drawn  from  common  life.  This,  in- 
deed, has  been  the  manner  of  the  highest  masters,  both  in  poetry 
and  painting,  ^.,if.,  Shakespeare  and  Dante,  and  the  portraits,  and 
even  heroic  figures  of  Leonardo,  Raphael,  Michael  Angelo,  Sebas- 
tian del  Riombo,  Bronzino,  the  two  latter  with  Titian,  the  triumvi- 
rate of  portrait-painting.  You  find  the  same  in  Correggio.  He 
never  idealises,  i.e.,  abstracts  in  a  portrait,  seldom  in  any  place. 
You  would  know  the  glorious  '  Venus '  of  the  National  Gallery  if 
you  met  her  in  the  street.  So  this  element  you  have  a  full  right  to 
employ. 

"  But  there  is  another,  of  which  Banyan,  as  a  Puritan  tinker, 
was  not  conscious,  though  he  had  it  in  his  heart,  that  is,  classic 
grace  and  purity  of  form.  He  had  it  in  his  heart,  as  much  as 
Spenser.  His  women,  his  Mr.  Greatheart,  his  Faithful,  his  shep- 
herds, can  only  be  truly  represented  in  a  lofty  and  delicate  outline, 
otherwise  the  ideal  beauty  which  lifts  them  into  a  supernatural  and 
eternal  world  is  lost  and  they  become  mere  good  folks  of  the  seven- 
teenth century.  Some  illustrators,  feeling  this,  have  tried  to  me- 
dievalize  them — silly  fellows.  What  has  Bunyan  to  do  with  the 
Middle  Age?  He  writes  for  all  ages,  he  is  full  of  an  eternal 
humanity,  and  that  eternal  humanity  can  only  be  represented  by 
something  of  the  eternal  form  which  you  find  in  Greek  statues.  I 
don't  mean  that  you  are  to  Grecianize  their  dress,  any  more  than 
medievalize  it.     No.     And  here  comes  an  important  question. 

"  Truly  to  illustrate  a  ]Doem,  you  must  put  the  visions  on  paper 
IS  they  appeared  to  the  mind  of  the  seer  himself.  Now  we  know 
that  liunyan  saw  these  people  in  his  mind's  eye,  as  dressed  in  the 
garb  of  his  own  century.  It  is  very  graceful,  and  I  should  keep  lo 
It,  not  only  for  historic  truth's  sake,  but  because  in  no  other  way 
can  you  express  Bunyan's  leading  idea,  that  the  same  sui)ernatural 
world  which  was  close  to  old  prophets  and  martyrs,  was  close  to 
him  ;  that  the  devil  who  whispered  in  the  ears  of  Judas,  whispered 
in  the  ears  cf  a  cavalier  over  his  dice,  or  a  Presbyterian  minister  in 
hi?  Geneva  gown      Take  these  hints  as  meant,  kindly." 


Illustrating  Pilgrii7^s  Progress.  291 

St.  Leonard's,  April  i,  1859. 

"I  saw  Longman  tlie  other  day  hunting  his  hounds,  and  we  had 
a  talk  abflut  you  and  the  'Pilgrim's  Progress.'  1  shall  be  ready  for 
you  some  time  this  summer.  Do  you  know  the  old  cuts  of  the 
*  Pelerinage  de  I'honime,'  from  which  Bunyan  took  his  idea?  They 
have  been  lately  repjblished.  I  will  show  them  to  you  when  you 
come  down  to  me. 

*'  I  like  your  heads  well.  I  really  have  had  no  time  to  write  to 
you  before,  having  been  half  insane  with  parish  work  and  confirma- 
tion classes.  I  think  Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman  excellent,  and  '  the 
Lust  of  the  Eye,'  ditto.  'AEr.  Gripeman'  is  too  handsome.  I 
think  you  want  a  more  sharp,  comprest,  and  cruel  lip.  But  the 
general  shape  of  the  face  is  good.  It  is  veiy  like  Alva,  who  was  a 
cruel  man,  and  a  rigid  pedant. 

*'  I  think  you  must  have  more  smirk  about  Smoothman's  face  ; 
and  should  certainly  shave  him,  all  but  a  very  neat  little  imperial 
The  '  Lust  of  the  Flesh,'  is  hardly  animal  enough.  I  have  gene 
rally  seen  with  strong  animal  passion,  a  tendency  to  high  cheek 
bone  ;  but  only  in  a  dark  woman.  Yours  may  stand  for  a  blonde 
type  ;  but  even  then  I  should  prefer  a  lower  forehead.  I  should 
take  the  'Pride  of  Life'  for  an  older  woman,  and  a  much  stouter 
one.  Give  her  very  full  features  and  bust.  As  it  is,  your  '  Pride 
of  Life '  has  more  animal  passion  than  the  '  Lust  of  the  Flesh  ; '  in- 
deed, beyond  that  of  vacuity,  she  has  not  much.  She  would  be 
gad-about  and  vain  enough,  but  not  pompous  and  magnificent. 
Besides,  she  is  a  low  type,  and  you  should  have  the  highest  you 
can  get.  You  see  I  criticise  freely.  I  liked  your  '  Vanity  Fair ' 
sketches  (in  words)  very  much.  Embody  them  in  lines,  and  }'OU 
will  indeed  do  well.  Do  you  know  Walker's  'Analysis  of  Female 
Beauty?'  It  is  a  valuable  book,  and  has  much  which  would  help 
any  man." 

In  July  Mr.  Kingsley  attended  the  first  meeting  of  the  Ladies' 
Sanitary  Association  at  \Villis's  Rooms,  and  made  the  following  re- 
markable speech  : — 

"  Let  me  say  one  thing  to  the  ladies  who  are  interested  in  this 
.ifiatter.  Have  they  really  seriously  considered  what  they  are 
about  to  do  in  carrying  out  their  own  plans  ?  Are  they  aware  that 
if  their  Society  really  succeeds  they  will  produce  a  very  seriou? 
some  would  think  a  very  dangerous,  change  in  the  state  of  this 
nation?  Aie  they  aware  that  they  would  probably  sa\  a  the  livei! 
of  some  thirty  or  forty  per  cent,  of  the  children  who  are  born  in 
England,  and  that  therefore  they  would  cause  the  subjects  of 
Queen  Victoria  to  iiicrease  at  a  very  far  more  rapid  rate  than  they 
do  now  ?     And  are  they  aw.ire  that  fome  very  wise  men  ir  form  ui 


292  Charles  Kingsley. 

that  England  is  already  over-peopled,  and  that  it  is  an  exceeding!) 
puzzling  question  where  we  shall  soon  be  able  to  find  work  or  food 
for  our  1!  lasses,  so  rapidl}'  do  they  increase  already,  in  spite  of  the 
thirty  or  forty  per  cent,  kind  Nature  carries  off  yearly  before  the\ 
are  five  years  old  ?  Have  they  considered  what  they  are  to  do 
with  all  those  children  whom  they  are  going  to  save  alive  ?  That 
has  to  be  thought  of;  and  if  they  really  do  believe,  widi  political 
economists  now,  that  over-population  is  a  possibility  to  a  country 
which  has  the  greatest  colonial  empire  that  the  world  has  ever 
seen,  then  I  think  they  had  better  stop  in  their  course  and  let  the 
cliildren  die,  as  they  have  been  dying. 

"  But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  it  seems  to  them,  as  I  confess  it  does 
to  me,  that  the  most  precious  thing  in  the  world  is  a  human  being, 
that  the  lowest,  and  poorest,  and  most  degraded  of  human  beings 
is  better  than  all  the  dumb  animals  in  the  world ;  that  there  is  an 
infinite,  priceless  capability  in  that  creature,  degraded  as  it  may  be 
■ — a  capability  of  virtue,  and  of  social  and  industrial  use,  which,  if 
it  is  taken  in  time,  may  be  developed  up  to  a  pitch,  of  which  at 
first  sight  the  child  gives  no  hint  whatsoever;  if  they  believe 
again,  that  of  all  races  upon  earth  now,  probably  the  English  race 
is  the  finest,  and  that  it  gives  not  the  slightest  sign  whatever 
of  exhaustion  ;  that  it  seems  to  be  on  the  whole  a  young  race,  and  to 
have  very  great  capabilities  in  it  which  have  not  yet  been  developed, 
and  above  all,  the  most  marvellous  capability  of  adapting  itself  to 
every  sort  of  climate,  and  every  form  of  life  that  any  nation,  except 
the  old  Roman,  ever  had  in  the  world :  if  they  consider  with  me 
that  it  is  worth  the  while  of  political  economists  and  social  philos- 
ophers to  look  at  the  map,  and  see  that  about  four-fifths  of  the 
globe  cannot  be  said  as  yet  to  be  in  anywise  inhabitated  or  culti- 
vated, or  in  the  state  in  which  men  could  make  it  by  any  fair  sup- 
ply of  poimlation  and  industry  and  human  intellect : — then, 
perhaps,  they  may  think  with  me  that  it  is  a  duty,  one  of  the 
noblest  of  duties,  to  help  the  increase  of  the  English  race  as  much 
as  possible,  and  to  see  that  every  child  .that  is  born  into  th's  great 
nation  of  England  be  developed  to  the  highest  pitch  to  which  we 
can  develop  him,  in  physical  strength  and  in  beauty,  as  well  as  in 
intellect  and  in  virtue.  And  then,  in  that  light,  it  does  seem  to 
ttie,  that  this  Association — small  now,  but  1  do  hope  some  day  tc 
become  great,  and  to  become  the  mother  Association  of  many  and 
valuable  children — is  one  of  the  noblest,  most  right-minded, 
straight-forward,  and  practical  conceptions  that  I  have  come 
across  for  some  years. 

"  We  all  know  the  difficulties  of  Sanitary  Legislation,  One 
iooks  at  tliem  at  times  almost  with  despair.  I  have  my  own  rea- 
sons, with  which  I  will  not  trouble  this  meeting,  for  looking  on 
them  with  m?re  despair  than  ever  ;  not  on  account  of  the  govern, 
ment  of  the  tune,  or  any  possible  government  that  could  c  uir  to 


Women  and  Sanitary  Reform.  293 

Englan  1,  but  on  account  of  the  peculiar  class  of  persons  in  whom 
the  ownership  of  the  small  houses  has  become  more  and  more 
vested,  and  who  are  becoming  more  and  more,  I  had  almost  said, 
the  arbiters  of  the  popular  opinion,  and  of  every  election  of  parlia? 
ment.  However,  that  is  no  business  of  mine  here ;  that  must  be 
settled  somewhere  else  :  and  a  fearfully  long  time,  it  seems  to  me, 
it  will  be  before  it  is  settled.  But,  in  the  mean  time,  what  legisla- 
tion cannot  do,  I  believe  private  help,  and,  above  all,  woman's 
help,  can  do  even  better.  It  can  do  this  ;  it  can  not  only  improve 
the  condition  of  the  working-man  ;  I  am  not  speaking  of  working- 
men  just  at  this  time,  I  am  speaking  of  the  middle  classes,  of  the 
man  who  owns  the  house  in  which  the  working-man  lives.  I  am 
speaking,  too,  of  the  wealthy  tradesman  ;  I  am  speaking,  it  is  a  sad 
thing  to  have  to  say,  of  our  own  class  as  well  as  of  others.  Sani- 
tary Reform,  as  it  is  called,  or,  in  plain  English,  the  art  of  health, 
is  so  very  recent  a  discovery,  as  all  true  physical  science  is,  that 
we  ourselves  and  our  own  class  know  very  little  about  it,  and  prac- 
tice it  very  ill.  And  this  Society,  I  do  hope,  will  bear  in  mind 
that  it  is  not  simply  to  affect  the  working-man,  not  only  to  go  into 
the  foul  alley  ;  but  it  is  to  go  to  the  door  of  the  farmer,  to  the  door 
of  the  shopkeeper,  aye,  to  the  door  of  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  the 
same  rank  as  ourselves.  Women  can  do  in  that  work  what  men 
cannot  do.  Private  correspondence,  private  conversation,  private 
example,  may  do  what  no  legislation  can  do.  I  am  struck  more 
and  more  with  the  amount  of  disease  and  death  I  see  around  me 
in  all  classes,  which  no  sanitary  legislation  whatsoever  could  touch, 
unless  you  had  a  complete  house-to-house  visitation  of  a  govern- 
ment officer,  with  powers  to  enter  every  house,  to  drain  and  venti- 
late it,  and  not  only  that,  but  to  regulate  the  clothes  and  the  diet  of 
every  inhabitant,  and  that  among  all  ranks.  I  can  conceive  of 
nothing  short  of  that,  which  would  be  absurd  and  impossible  and 
most  harmful,  which  would  stop  the  present  amount  of  disease  and 
death  which  I  see  around  me,  without  some  such  private  exertion 
on  the  part  of  women,  above  all  of  mothers,  as  1  do  hope  will 
spring  from  this  Institution  more  and  more. 

"  I  see  this,  that  three  persons  out  of  four  are  utterly  unaware 
of  the  general  causes  of  their  own  ill  health,  and  of  the  ill  health 
of  their  children.  They  talk  of  their  *  afflictions,'  and  their  '  mis- 
fortunes ; '  and,  if  they  be  pious  people,  they  talk  of  '  the  will  of 
God,'  and  of  '  the  visitation  of  God.'  I  do  not  like  to  trench  ujion 
those  matters,  but  when  I  read  in  my  Book  and  in  your  Book  that 
*  it  is  not  the  will  of  our  Father  in  heaven  that  one  of  these  Ih^h; 
ones  should  perish,'  it  has  come  to  my  mind  sometimes  with  very 
great  strength,  that  that  may  have  a  physical  a])plication  as  wt*ll  as 
a  spiritual  one,  and  that  the  Father  in  heaven  who  does  not  wish 
the  child's  soul  to  die  may  possibly  have  created  that  child's  body 
for  the  purpose  of  its  rot  dying  except  in  a  good  old  age.     No' 


?94  Charles  Kingstey. 

only  in  the  lower  class,  but  in  the  middle  class,  when  one  seos  ar 
unhealthy  family,  then  in  three  cases  out  of  four,  if  one  takes  time., 
trouble,  and  care  enough,  one  can,  with  the  help  of  the  doctor  whc 
has  been  attending  them,  run  the  evil  home  to  a  very  dififercnt 
cause  than  the  will  of  God  ;  and  that  is,  to  a  stupid  neglect,  a 
stupid  ignorance,  or  what  is  just  as  bad,  a  stupid  indulgence, 

"  Now,  I  do  believe  that  if  those  tracts  which  you  are  publisli- 
ing;  which  I  have  read,  and  of  which  I  cannot  speak  too  highly, 
are  spread  over  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land,  and  if  women, 
cleigymen's  wives,  the  wives  of  manufacturers  and  of  great  em- 
ployers, district  visitors  and  school  mistresses,  have  these  books 
put  into  their  hands,  and  are  persuaded  to  spread  them,  and  to 
enforce  them,  by  their  own  example  and  by  their  own  counsel, 
then  in  the  course  of  a  few  years,  this  system  being  thoroughly 
carried  out,  you  would  see  a  sensible  and  large  increase  in  the  rate 
of  population. 

"  When  you  have  saved  your  children  alive,  then  you  must  settle 
what  to  do  with  them.  But  a  living  dog  is  better  than  a  dead 
lion  ;  I  would  rather  have  the  living  child,  and  let  it  take  its 
chance,  than  let  it  return  to  God — -wasted.  Oh  !  it  is  a  distressing 
thing  to  see  children  die.  God  gives  the  most  beautiful  and 
precious  thing  that  earth  can  have,  and  we  just  take  it  and  cast  it 
away  ;  we  cast  our  pearls  upon  the  dunghill,  and  leave  them.  A 
dying  child  is  to  me  one  of  the  most  dreadful  sights  in  the  world. 
A  dying  man,  a  man  dying  on  the  field  of  battle,  that  is  a  small 
sight ;  he  has  taken  his  chance  ;  he  has  had  his  excitement,  he 
has  had  his  glory,  if  that  will  be  any  consolation  to  him ;  if  he  is  a 
wise  man,  he  has  the  feeling  that  he  is  doing  his  duty  by  his  coun- 
try, or  by  his  King,  or  by  his  Queen.  It  does  not  horrify  or  shock 
me  to  see  a  man  dying  in  a  good  old  age,  even  though  it  be  pain- 
ful at  the  last,  as  it  too  often  is.  But  it  does  shock  me,  it  does 
make  me  feel  that  the  world  is  indeed  out  of  joint,  to  see  a  child 
die.  I  believe  it  to  be  a  priceless  boon  to  the  child  to  have  lived 
for  a  week,  or  a  day  ;  but  oh,  what  has  God  given  to  this  thanlc- 
less  earth,  and  what  has  the  earth  thrown  away,  in  nine  cases  out 
of  ten,  from  its  own  neglect  and  carelessness  ?  What  that  bov 
might  have  been,  what  he  might  have  done  as  an  Englishman,  if 
he  could  have  lived  and  grown  up  healthy  and  strong  !  I  entreat 
ycu  to  bear  this  in  mind,  that  it  is  not  as  if  our  lower  classes  or  oui 
middle  classes  were  not  worth  saving  ;  bear  in  mind  that  the  physi 
cal  beauty  and  strength  and  intellectual  power  of  the  middle 
classes, — the  shopkeeping  class,  the  farming  class,  the  working 
class — whenever  you  give  them  a  fair  chance,  whenever  you  give 
them  fair  footl  and  air,  and  physical  education  of  any  kind,  prove 
them  to  te  the  finest  race  in  Europe.  Not  merely  the  aristocracy 
splendid  race  as  they  are  :  but  down  and  down  and  down  to  the 
lowest  Vjoring  man,  to  the  navigator  ; — why  there  is  uut  such  t 


JVasted  Lives.  295 

body  of  inei)  in  E.iiope  as  our  navigators,  and  no  body  of  men 
perliaps  have  had  a  worse  char.ce  of  growing  to  be  what  they  are  ; 
and  yet  see  what  they  have  done.  See  the  magnificent  men  they 
become  in  spite  of  all  that  is  against  them,  all  that  is  draA'ing  them 
back,  all  that  is  tending  to  give  them  rickets  and  consumption,  and 
all  the  miserable  diseases  which  childz^en  contract  ;  see  what  men 
they  are,  and  then  conceive  what  they  might  be. 

"  It  has  been  said,  again,  that  there  are  no  more  beautiful  races 
of  wonien  in  Europe  than  the  wives  and  daughters  of  our  J,ondon 
shopkeepers,  and  yet  tliere  are  few  races  of  people  who  lead  a  life 
more  in  opposition  to  all  rules  of  hygiene.  But  in  spite  of  all  that, 
so  wonderful  is  the  vitality  of  the  English  race,  that  they  are  what 
they  are  ;  and  therefore  we  have  the  finest  material  to  work  upon 
that  people  ever  had.  And  therefore,  again,  we  have  the  less 
excuse  if  we  do  allow  English  people  to  grow  up  puny,  stunted, 
and  diseased. 

'*  Let  me  refer  again  to  that  word  that  I  used  :  death — the 
amount  of  death.  I  really  believe  there  are  hundreds  of  good  and 
kmd  people  who  would  take  up  this  subject  with  their  whole  heart 
and  soul  if  they  were  aware  of  the  magnitude  of  the  evil.  Lord 
Shaftesbury  told  you  just  now  that  there  were  one  hundred  thou- 
sand preventable  deaths  in  England  every  year.  So  it  is.  We 
talk  of  the  loss  of  human  life  in  war.  We  are  the  fools  of  smoke 
and  noise  ;  because  there  are  cannon-balls  and  gunpowder,  and 
red  coats,  and  because  it  costs  a  great  deal  of  money,  and  makes  i\ 
great  deal  of  noise  in  the  i)apers,  we  think.  What  so  terrible  as 
war  ?  1  will  tell  you  what  is  ten  times,  and  ten  thousand  times, 
more  terrible  than  war,  and  that  is — outraged  nature.  War,  we 
are  discovering  now,  is  the  clumsiest  and  most  expensive  of  all 
games ;  we  are  finding  that  if  you  wish  to  commit  an  act  of 
cruelty  or  folly,  the  most  expensive  act  that  you  can  commit  is  to 
contrive  to  shoot  your  fellow-men  in  war.  So  it  seems  ;  but  Na- 
ture, insidious,  inexpensive,  silent,  sends  no  roar  of  cannon,  no 
glitter  of  arms  to  do  he  work  ;  she  gives  no  warning  note  of 
preparation  ;  she  has  no  protocol,  nor  any  diplomatic  advances, 
whereby  she  warns  her  er  :my  that  war  is  coming.  Silently,  I  say, 
and  insidiously  she  goes  forth  ;  no — she  does  not  even  go  fortli, 
she  does  not  step  out  of  her  padi,  but  quietly,  by  the  very  same 
laws  by  which  she  makes  alive,  she  puts  to  death.  By  Ihe  ver) 
same  laws  by  which  every  blade  of  grass  grows,  and  everv  insect 
springs  to  life  in  the  sunbeam,  she  kills,  and  kills,  and  kills,  and  is 
never  tired  of  killing,  till  she  has  taught  man  the  terrible  lesson  ho 
is  so  slow  to  learn,  that  nature  is  only  conquered  by  obeying  her. 

"^  "d  bear  m  mind  one  thing  more.  Man  has  his  courtesies  of 
war,  >d  his  chivalries  of  war  :  he  does  not  strike  the  unarmed 
man  oe  spares  the  woman  and  the  child.  But  Nature  is  fierce 
w','        he  is  offended,  as  she  is  bounteous  and  kind  when  she  is 


2g6  Charles  Kings  ley, 

obeyed.  She  spares  neither  woman  nor  child.  Slie  has  no  pity 
for  some  awful,  but  most  good  reason,  she  is  not  allov^ed  to  havt 
any  pity.  Silently  she  strikes  the  sleeping  child,  with  as  little 
remorse  as  she  would  strike  the  strong  man,  with  the  musket  oi 
the  pickaxe  in  his  hand.  Ah,  would  to  God  that  some  man  had 
the  pictorial  eloquence  to  put  befort  the  mothers  of  England  the 
mass  of  preventable  suffering,  the  mass  of  preventable  agony  of 
mind  and  body,  which  exists  in  England  year  after  year  !  And 
would  that  some  man  had  the  logical  eloquence  to  make 
them  understand  that  it  is  in  their  power,  in  the  power  of  the 
mothers  and  wives  of  the  higher  class,  I  will  not  say  to  stop  it 
all, — God  only  knows  that, — but  to  stop,  as  I  believe,  three- 
fourths  of  it. 

"  It  is  in  the  power,  I  believe,  of  any  woman  in  this  room  to 
save  three  or  four  lives,  human  lives,  during  the  next  six  months. 
It  is  in  your  power,  ladies,  and  it  is  so  easy.  You  might  save 
several  lives  apiece,  if  you  choose,  without,  I  believe,  interfering 
with  your  daily  business,  or  with  your  daily  pleasure,  or,  if  you 
choose,  with  your  daily  frivolities,  in  any  way  whatsoever.  Let  me 
ask,  then,  those  who  are  here,  and  who  have  not  yet  laid  these 
things  to  heart  :  Will  you  let  this  meeting  to-day  be  a  mere  pass- 
ing matter  of  two  or  three  hours'  interest,  which  you  shall  go  away 
and  forget  for  the  next  book  or  the  next  amusement  ?  Or  will 
you  be  in  earnest?  Will  you  learn — I  say  it  openly — from  the 
noble  chairman  *,  how  easy  it  is  to  be  earnest  in  life  ;  how  every 
one  of  you,  amid  all  the  artificial  complications  of  English  society 
in  the  nineteenth  century,  can  find  a  work  to  do,  and  a  noble 
work  to  do,  chivalrous  work  to  do, — just  as  chivalrous  as  if  you 
lived  in  any  old  fairy  land,  such  as  Spenser  talked  of  in  his  '  Eaery 
Queen  ;'  how  you  can  be  as  true  a  knight-errant,  or  lady-errant  in 
the  present  century,  as  if  you  had  lived  far  away  in  the  dark  ages 
of  violence  and  rapine  ?  Will  you,  I  ask,  learn  this  ?  Will  you 
learn  to  be  in  earnest,  and  use  the  position,  and  the  station,  and 
the  talent  that  God  has  given  you,  to  save  alive  those  who  should 
live  ?  And  will  you  remember  that  it  is  not  the  will  of  you* 
Father  that  is  in  heaven  that  one  little  one  that  plays  in  the  kenne5 
outside  should  perish,  either  in  body  or  in  soul  ?  " 

Mr.  Kingsley's  work  was  incessant,  and  the  letters  now  printed 
give  a  most  inadequate  idea  of  the  labor  of  his  life,  of  the  calls  on  his 
sympathy,  and  of  the  different  attitudes  in  which  he  had  to  put  hi! 
mind  according  to  the  variety  of  subjects  on  which  he  was  asked 
for  counsel,  or  called  upon  to  do  battle ;  but  as  Bishop  Eorbci 


♦  The  Earl  of  Shaftesbury. 


Letter  from  John  Stuart  Milt.  jg) 

beautifully  says  of  Professor  James  D.  Forbes  in  words  which  trul> 
picture  Mr.  Kingsley,  espec  ally  in  the  concluding  sentence, 

*'  I  never  saw  in  any  man  such  fearlessness  in  tlie  path  of  duty. 
The  one  question  with  him  was  '  Is  it  right?'  No  dread  of  con- 
seiuences,  and  consequences  often  bitterly  felt  by  him,  and  wound- 
ing his  sensitive  nature,  ever  prevented  him  from  doing  that  to 
which'  conscience  prompted.  His  sense  of  right  amounted  to 
chivalry." 

But  he  seldom  returned  from  speech  or  lecture  without  showing 
that  so  much  life  had  actually  gone  out  of  him — not  only  from  the 
strain  of  brain  and  heart,  but  from  the  painful  sense  of  antagonism 
which  his  startling  mode  of  stating  things  called  out  in  his  hearers, 
and  of  which  he  was  keenly  conscious  at  the  time. 

The  following  letter  from  Mr.  Mill  was  in  answer  to  one  from 
Mr.  Kingsley  thanking  him  for  the  gift  of  his  "  Dissertations  and 
Discussions,"  and  also  for  the  work  on  "  Liberty,"  which  he  says, 
"  atTected  me  in  making  me  a  clearer-headed,  braver-minded  man 
on  the  spot." 

MR.    JOHN    STUART    MILL   TO    REV.    CHARLES    KINGSLEY. 

Saint  Veren,  near  Avignon,  Aug.  6,  1859. 

"  Your  letter  of  July  5  reached  me  long  after  its  date,  vvhilc 
wandering  in  search  of  health  in  the  Pyrenees.  Allow  me,  while 
expressing  the  great  pleasure  it  gave  me,  to  say  that  its  humility,  as 
it  respects  yourself,  seems  to  me  as  much  beyond  the  mark  as  the 
deference  expressed  towards  me  exceeds  anything  I  have  the 
smallest  title  to. 

'■'■  Lmidari  a  laudato,  or  by  any  other  viro,  has  never  been  very 
much  of  an  object  with  me.  But  to  be  told  by  a  man  who  is  him- 
Sf.lf  one  of  the  good  influences  of  the  age,  and  whose  sincerity  I 
cannot  doubt,  that  anything  1  have  written  makes  him  feel  able  to 
be  a  still  better  influence,  is  both  an  encouragement  and  a  reward 
—the  greatest  1  can  look  for,  now  that  a  still  greater  has  been 
taken  from  me  by  death. 

"  Far  from  having  read  none  of  your  books,  I  have  read  thein 
nearly  all,  and  hope  to  read  all  of  them.  I  have  found  in  them  an 
earnest  endeavor  towards  many  of  the  objects  I  myself  have  at 
heart ;  and  even  when  I  differed  from  you  it  has  never  been  with- 
out  great  interest  and  sympathy.  There  aje  few  men  between 
whom  and  myself  any  nearer  approximation  in  opinion  couid  be 
t.iore  agreeable  to  me,  and  that  you  should  look  forward  to  it  give* 
me  a  pleasure  I  could  not  forbear  to  express." 


298  Charles  Kmgsley. 

TO    FREDERIC    SHIELDS    ESQ. 

EVERSI  EV     Net.   29,    IS59. 

Vour  lettei  is  sensible  and  pertinent  to  the  r.iattei  in  hand, 
and  I  tell  you  at  once  what  I  can.  I  think  that  you  much  over- 
rate tlie  disuse  of  armor  in  Bunyan's  day.  When  the  Tilgrim'i 
Progress'  was  written  it  was  much  gone  out,  but  in  Bunyan's 
boyhood  he  must  have  seen  everywhere  old  armor  hanging  up  in 
every  gentleman  or  burgher's  house  (he  would  to  his  dying  day), 
which  had  been  worn  and  used  by  the  generation  before  him.  Al- 
lowing, as  we  must,  in  every  human  being  for  the  reverence  for 
early  impressions,  I  think  his  mind  would  have  pictured  to  him 
simply  the  Elizabethan  and  James  I.'s  armor,  which  he  saw  hang- 
ing in  all  noble  houses,  and  in  which  he  may  have,  as  a  boy,  seen 
gentlemen  joust,  for  tilting  was  not  extinct  in  his  boyhood.  As 
for  this  co-existing  with  slop  breeches  (what  we  now  call  knicker- 
Dockers  are  nothing  else),  1  think  you  will  find,  as  now,  that 
country  fashions  changed  slowlier  than  town.  The  puffed  trunk- 
nose  of  1 5 80- 1 600  CO- existed  with  the  finest  cap-a-pied  armor  of 
proof.  They  gradually  in  the  country,  where  they  were  ill  made, 
became  slops,  i.  <?.,  knickerbockers.  By  that  time  almost  loose  and 
short  cavalier  breeks  had  superseded  them  in  the  court — but  what 
matter?  The  change  is  far  less  than  that  during  1815-1855.  The 
anachronism  of  putting  complete  armor  by  the  side  of  one  drest 
as  Christian  is  in  the  frontispiece  of  the  original  edition  of  the 
'  J'ilgrim's  Progress'  is  far  less  than  putting  you  by  the  side  of  a 
L'fe-Guard's  officer  in  1855  ;  far  less,  again,  than  putting  a  clod 
of  my  parish,  drest  as  he  would  have  been  in  A.  D.  iioo,  in  smock 
frock  and  leather  gaiters,  by  the  side  of  you  or  me.  Therefore 
use  without  fear  the  beautiful  armor  of  the  later  years  of  Elizabeth 
and  the  beginning  of  James  I.,  and  all  will  be  right,  and  shock 
nobody.  As  for  shields,  I  should  use  the  same  time.  Shields 
were  common  among  serving  men  in  James  I.  There  are  seveial 
in  the  Tower,  fitted  with  a  pistol  to  be  fired  from  the  inside,  and  a 
long  spike.  All  are  round.  I  believe  that  '  sword  and  buckler 
play  was  a  common  thing  among  the  country  folk  in  Bunyan's 
time.  Give  your  man,  therefore,  a  circular  shield,  such  as  he 
would  have  seen  in  his  boyhood,  or  even  later,  among  the  retaineis 
of  nobU^  houses.  As  for  the  cruelties  practised  on  Faithful, — for 
.le  sake  of  humanity  don't  talk  of  tliat.  The  Puritans  were  very 
4"uel  ill  the  North  American  colonies  ;  horribly  cruel,  though  no- 
here  else.  But  in  ]>unyan's  time  the  pages  of  Morland,  and 
others,  show  us  that  in  Piedmont,  not  to  mention  the  Thirtj 
Vears'  War  in  Germany,  horrors  were  being  transacted  which  no 
pen  can  describe  nor  pencil  draw.  Dear  old  Oliver  Cromwell 
stopped  them  in  Piedmont,  when  he  told  the  Pope  that  unless  they 
were  stopped  English  camon  should  be  heard  at  the  gates  of  \hc 


Revivals  and  Revivalists.  299 

Vatican.  But  no  cruelty  to  man  or  wounm  that  you  dire  draw 
can  equal  what  v/as  going  on  on  the  Continent  from  Papist  to 
Protestant  during  l^unyan's  Hfetime. 

''  I  have  now  told  you  all  1  can.  I  am  very  nnwell,  and  forbid 
to  work.  Therefore  1  cannot  tell  you  more,  but  what  I  send  I 
send  witli  all  good  wishes  to  any  man  who  will  be  true  to  art  and 
lo  his  author." 

TO    LORD    ROBERT    MONTAGU, 

EvERSLEY,  July  7,  1859. 

"As  to  revivals  I  don't  wonder  at  revivalists  taking  to  drink 
Calvinism  has  become  so  unreal — so  afraid  of  itself — so  apolo- 
getic about  its  own  peculiar  doctrines,  on  which  alone  it  stands, 
that  revivals  now  must  be  windy  liarings  ui)  in  the  socket  of  the 
dying  candle.  All  revivals  of  religion  which  I  ever  read  of,  which 
produced  a  permanent  effect,  owed  their  strength  to  the  introduc- 
tion of  some  new  element,  derived  from  the  actual  modern  con- 
sciousness, and  explaining  some  fresh  facts  in  or  round  man  ;  c.^., 
the  revivals  of  the  Franciscans  and  Dominicans — those  of  the 
Reformation  and  of  Wesley. 

"  We  may  see  such  things  ere  we  die.  At  present  revivals  are 
mere  threshings  of  the  old  chaff,  to  see  if  a  grain  of  corn  be  still 
there." 

TO ,  ESQ. 

EvERSLEY,  March  16,  1859. 

"I  wish  you  Avould  give  me  the  chai)ter  and  page  in  which  Swe- 
denborg  handles  your  text  (Matt.  xxii.  24-28).  There  are  many 
noble  and  beautiful  things  in  that  text-book  of  his,  and  I  should 
like  to  see  what  he  makes  of  so  puzzling  a  passage.  It  seems  to 
me  that  we  must  look  at  it  from  the  stand-point  of  the  Sadducees. 
and  therefore  of  our  Lord  as  condescending  to  them.  It  is  a 
hideous  case  in  itself.  ....  I  conceive  the  Jews  had  no 
higher  notion  than  this  of  the  relation  of  the  sexes.  Perhaps  no 
eastern  people  ever  had.  The  conception  of  a  love-match  belong? 
to  our  'I'eutonic  race,  and  was  our  heritage  (so  Tacitus  savs  will.' 
awe  and  astonishment)  when  we  were  heathens  in  the  Gerniir 
forests.  You  will  find  nothing  of  it  in  Scripture,  after  the  first 
chapter  of  Genesis,  save  a  glimpse  thereof  (but  only  a  glimpse)  in 
St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians.  To  me,  who  believe  the 
Gospel  of  St.  John,  and  believe  therefore  that  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Word  of  God,  was  the  light  and  life  of  my  German  forefathers, 
a?  well  as  of  the  J^ws  there  is  nothing  strange  in  this.  I  only 
say,  Christ  has  taught  us  something  about  wedlock,  which  He  did 
not  teach  the  Jews;  that  He  taught  it  is   pro-ed  by  us  fruit?,  to; 


300  Charles  Kings  ley 

what  has  produced  more  of  nobleness,  mo.r  of  prr.ctical  gocd.  in 
the  human  race,  than  the  chivah-ous  idea  of  wedlock,  which  oui 
Teutonic  race  holds,  and  which  the  Romance  or  Popish  races  of 
Europe  have  never  to  this  day  grasped  with  any  firm  hold  ? 
Therefore  all  I  can  say  about  the  text  is  .  .  .  (about  mar- 
riage in  the  world  to  come)  that  it  has  nought  to  do  with  me  and 
my  wife.  1  know  that  if  immortality  is  to  include  in  my  case 
identity  of  person,  I  shall  feel  to  her  for  ever  what  I  feel  now 
That  feeling  may  be  developed  in  ways  which  I  do  not  expect ;  it 
may  have  provided  for  it  forms  of  expression  very  different  from 
any  which  are  among  the  holiest  sacraments  of  life  ;  of  that  I  take 
no  care.  The  union  I  believe  to  be  as  eternal  as  my  own  soul. 
I  have  no  rule  to  say  in  what  other  pairs  of  lovers  it  may  or  may 
not  be  eternal.  I  leave  all  in  the  hands  of  a  good  God;  and  can 
so  far  trust  His  Son  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,  as  to  be  sure  that 
He  knew  the  best  method  of  ])rotesling  against  the  old  Jewish 
error  (which  Popish  casuists  still  formally  assert)  that  the  first  end 
of  marriage  is  the  procreation  of  children,  and  thereby  laid  the 
irue  foundation  for  the  emancipation  of  woman. 

"  Let  neither  Swedenborg,  nor  any  other  man,  argue  you  out  of 
Uie  scientific  canon,  that  to  understand  the  spirit  of  Scripture,  or 
any  other  words,  you  must  first  understand  the  letter.  If  the  s])irit 
is  to  be  found  anywhere,  it  is  to  be  found  by  i)utting  yourself  in  the 
•j)lace  of  the  listeners,  and  seeing  what  the  words  would  have  meant 
to  them.  Then  take  that  meaning  as  an  instance  (possibly  a  lower 
one)  of  an  universal  spiritual  law,  true  for  all  men,  and  may  God 
give  you  wisdom  for  the  process  of  induction  by  which  that  law  is 
to  be  discovered." 

The  next  letter,  on  the  Eternity  of  Marriage,  written  some  years 
before,  may  fitly  come  in  here  with  scattered  extracts  on  the  same 
subject. 

".  .  .  \\\  heaven  they  neither  marry  nor  are  given  in  mai- 
tiage,  but  are  as  the  angels  of  God  ! — And  how  are  the  angels  of 
God  in  heaven?  Is  there  no  love  among  them?  If  the  law  which 
juako.s  two  beings  unite  themselves,  and  crave  to  unite  themselves, 
in  body,  noul,  and  spirit,  be  the  law  of  earth — of  pure  humanity — 
if,  so  far  from  being  established  by  the  Fall,  this  law  has  been  ihe 
one  from  which  the  Fall  has  made  mankind  deflect  most  in  every 
possible  way  ;  if  the  restoration  of  purity  and  the  restoration  of 
this  law  are  synonymous;  if  love  be  of  the  Spirit — the  vastest  and 
simplest  exercise  of  will  of  which  we  can  conceive — then  why 
should  not  this  law  hold  in  the  spiritual  world  as  well  as  in  the 
natural  ?  In  heaven  they  neither  marry  nor  are  given  in  mariiage  ; 
but  is  not  marriage  the  mere  approximation  to  a  unity  wh '-h  shall 


Efernify  of  Marriagt..  301 

be  |:eifect  in  heaven  ?  Read  what  Milton  says  of  angels'  love  in 
Books  VI.  and  Vll.  and  take  comfort.  What  if  many  lia\e  been 
alone  o\\  earth  ?  may  they  not  find  their  kindred  spirit  in  heaven, 
and  be  nnited  to  it  by  a  tie  still  deeper  than  marriage?  And  shall 
we  not  be  re-united  in  heaven  by  that  still  dee])er  tie?  Surely  on 
earth  God  has  loved,  Christ  the  Lord  has  loved — some  more  than 
others — why  should  we  not  do  the  same  in  heaven,  and  yet  love 
•all  ?  Here  the  natural  body  can  but  strive  to  express  its  love- 
its  desiie  of  union.  Will  not  one  of  the  properties  of  the  spiriturl 
body  be,  that  it  will  be  able  to  express  that  which  the  natural  body 
only  tries  to  express  ?  Is  this  a  sensual  view  of  heaven  ?  then  are 
the  two  last  chapters  of  the  Revelation  most  sensual.  They  tell, 
not  only  of  the  perfection  of  humanity,  with  all  its  joys  and  wishes 
and  properties,  but  of  matter  !  They  tell  of  trees,  and  fruit,  and 
rivers — of  gold  and  gems,  and  all  beautiful  and  glorious  material 
things.  Isaiah  tells  of  beasts  and  birds  and  little  children  in  that 
new  earth.  Who  shall  say  that  the  number  of  living  beings  is  filled 
up?  Why  is  heaven  to  be  one  vast  lazy  retrospect  ?  Why  is  not 
eternity  to  have  action  and  change,  yet  both,  like  God's,  compati- 
ble with  rest  and  immutability  ?  This  earth  is  but  one  minor  planet 
of  a  minor  system  :  are  there  no  more  worlds  ?  Will  there  not  be 
iiicident  and  action  springing  from  these  when  the  fate  of  this  world 
is  decided?  Has  the  Evil  Spirit  touched  this  alone?  Is  it  not 
self-conceit  which  makes  us  think  the  redemption  of  this  earth  the 
one  event  of  eternity  ?  The  same  feeling  (sensuality,  which  is  self- 
love)  prompted  men  of  old  to  fancy  that  this  globe  was  the  centre 
of  the  universe. 

"These  are  matters  too  high  for  us,  therefore  we  will  leave  them 
alone ;  but  is  flatly  denying  their  existence  and  possibility  leaving 
them  alone  ?  No  !  it  is  intruding  into  them  more  conceitedly, 
insolently,  and  sensually  than  speculating  on  them  by  the  carnal 
understanding — like  the  Mystics,  Platonists,  and  Gnostics.  Calvin 
rtas  a  more  conceited  mystic  than  Henry  More,  It  is  more  humble, 
more  rational,  to  believe  the  possibility  of  all  things  than  to  doubt 
Uie  possibility  of  one  thing.  Reason  is  the  deadly  fire,  not  only  of 
mysticism  and  credulity,  but  of  unbelief  and  bigotry  !     .     .     .     . 

"And  what  if  earthly  love  seems  so  delicious  that  all  change  ir 
it  would  seem  a  change  for  the  worse  ?  Shall  we  repine  ?  Wha 
lues  reason  (and  faith,  which  is  reason  exercised  on  the  invisible) 
r-^quire  of  us,  but  to  conclude  that,  if  there  is  change,  there  will  be 
something  better  there?     Here  are  two  truths — 

"  ist.  Body  is  that  which  expresses  the  spirit  to  which  it  is  joined  , 
the;efore,  the  more  perfectly  spiritual  the  body,  the  better  it  wilj 
■express  the  spirit  joined  to  it. 

"  2nd.  The  expression  of  love  produces  happiness  ;  therefore 
the  more  perfect  the  expression  the  greater  the  ha-;)piness  !  And, 
therefore,  bliss  greater  than  any  we  can  know  here  awaits  us.  ir 


302  Charle:i  Kingsley. 

heaven.  And  does  not  the  course  of  nature  point  to  this  i*  Whaf 
else  is  the  meaning  of  the  gradual  increase  of  love  on  eai  th  ?  Whal 
else  is  the  meaning  of  old  age  ?  when  the  bodily  powers  die,  while 
the  love  increases.  What  does  that  point  to,  but  to  a  restoration 
of  the  body  when  mortality  is  swallowed  up  of  life?  Is  not  thai 
mortality  of  the  body  sent  us  mercifully  by  God,  to  teach  us  that 
our  love  is  spiritual,  and  therefore  will  be  able  to  express  itself  in  any 
state  of  existence?  to  wean  our  hearts  that  we  may  learn  to  look 
for  more  perfect  bliss  in  the  perfect  body?  ....  Do  not 
these  thoughts  take  away  from  all  earthly  bliss  the  poisoning 
thought,  '  all  this  must  end  ? '  Ay,  end  !  but  only  end  so  gradually 
that  we  shall  not  miss  it,  and  the  less  perfect  union  on  earth  shall 
be  replaced  in  heaven  by  perfect  and  spiritual  bliss  and  union,  in- 
conceivable because  perfect ! 

''  Do  I  undervalue  earthly  bliss  ?  No  !  I  enhance  it  when  I 
make  it  the  sacrament  of  a  higher  union  !  Will  not  these  thoughts 
give  more  exquisite  delight,  will  it  not  tear  off  the  thorn  from  every 
rose  and  sweeten  every  nectar  cup  to  perfect  security  of  blessed- 
ness, in  this  life,  to  feel  that  there  is  more  in  store  for  us — that  all 
expressions  of  love  here  are  but  dim  shadows  of  a  union  which  shall 
be  perfect,  if  we  will  but  work  here,  so  as  to  work  out  our  salva- 
tion ! 

"  My  views  of  second  marriage  are  peculiar.  1  consider  that  it 
is  allowed  for  the  hardness  of  men's  hearts,  but  from  the  beginning 
it  was  not  so,  and  will  not  be  so,  some  day,  when  the  might  of  love 
becomes  generally  appreciated  !  perhaps  that  will  never  be,  till  the 
earth  is  renewed." 


CHAPTER  XX. 

i860. 
Aged  41. 

P/off s£  Drship  of  Modern  History— Death  of  his  Father  and  of  Mrs.  Anthou) 
Froude — Planting  the  Churchyard — Visit  to  Ireland — First  Salmon  killed— 
Wet  Summer— Sermo;  on  Weather— Letter  from  Sir  Charles  Lyell— Corre- 
spondence— Residence  in  Cambridge — Inaugural  Lecture  in  the  Senate  Houss 
—Visits  to  Barton  Hall— Letter  from  Sir  Charles  Bunbury, 

The  Regius  professorship  of  Modern  History  at  Cambridge  had 
not  been  filled  up  since  the  resignation  of  Sir  James  Stephen,  and 
some  of  Mr.  Kingsley's  friend's  wished  to  see  him  in  the  vacant 
chair.  It  was  mentioned  to  Lord  Palmerston,  then  Prime  Ministei . 
On  the  9th  of  May  he  received  a  letter  from  Lord  Pahnerston  ask- 
ing him  if  he  was  willing  to  undertake  the  duties  of  the  post ;  ho 
accepted  with  extreme  diffidence,  and  went  up  to  the  University  in 
the  spring  to  take  his  M.A,  degree,  which  he  had  not  been  able  to 
atfoid  as  yet.  Dr.  Whewell,  who  was  then  Master  of  Trinity,  re- 
ceived him  most  kindly.  Having  been  one  of  those  who  had  dis- 
approved most  emphatically  of  "  Alton  Locke  "  when  it  was  first 
published,  his  generosity  on  this  occasion,  and  his  steady  friendf.hip 
from  that  time  up  to  the  date  of  his  own  death  in  1866,  laid  the 
new  Professor  under  a  deep  debt  of  gratitude.  The  feelings  with 
which  he  re-visited  Cambridge  are  told  in  a  letter  to  his  wife  frc'in 
Trinity  Lodge. 

Trinity,  Cambridge,  May  22,  i860. 

".  .  .  It  is  like  a  dream.  Most  beautiful — and  London 
buildings  having  been  the  only  ones  I  have  seen  for  years,  I  am 
struck  with  the  sharpness  and  richness  of  the  stone  work,  and  the 
exquisite  clearness  of  the  atmosphere.  My  windows  look  into 
Tri:uty  Walks — the  finest  green  walks  in  England,  now  full  of  flags 
and  tents  for  a  tulip  show.  I  had  a  pleasant  party  of  men  to  meet 
me  last  night.  After  breakfast  I  go  to  Magdalene,  then  to  the 
Senate  House  ;  after  luncheon  to  this  flower  show  then  to  dinner 
m  hall  at  Magdalene  ;  and  back  as  early  as  I  can.         .     ,     .     AU 


304  Charles  Kings  ley. 

tliis  is  so  very  awful  and  humbling  to  uie.      I  cannot  bear  to  think 
of  my  own  unwoithiness " 

His  experience  of  life  this  year  was  new,  varied,  and  often  very 
sad.  His  father,  to  whom  he  had  ever  been  the  most  dutiful  and 
devoted  son,  died  early  in  the  winter,  and  from  that  hour  till  her 
death  in  1873,  the  care  of  his  widowed  mother  was  one  of  his  first 
and  most  nobly  fulfilled  duties.  He  writes  to  his  old  college  friend, 
the  Rev.  James  Montagu,  from  Chelsea  rectory  in  Februai}  : 

*' .  .  .  Forgive  me  for  my  silence,  for  I  and  my  brothers  are 
now  wearily  watching  my  father's  death-bed — long  and  lingering. 
Miserable  to  see  life  prolonged  when  ail  that  makes  it  worth  having 
(physically)  is  gone,  and  never  to  know  from  day  to  day  whether 
the  end  is  to  come  in  six  hours  or  six  weeks.  But  he  is  all  right 
and  safe,  and  death  for  him  would  be  a  pure  and  simple  blessing, 

"  James  Montagu,  never  pray  for  a  long  life.  Better  die  in  the 
flower  of  one's  age,  than  go  through  what  I  have  seen  him  go 
through  in  the  last  few  days.  1  shall  come  to  you  at  Shoeburyness ; 
but  when,  God  knows." 

The  epitaph  he  wrote  over  his  father's  grave  in  Bromptor 
Cemetery  speaks  his  appreciation  of  that  father. 

"  Here  lies 

All  that  was  mortal 

of 

Charles  Kingsley, 

Formerly  of  Battramsley  House,  in  the  New  Forest,  Hants, 

And  lately  of  St.  Luke's  Rectory,  Chelsea. 

Endowed  by  God  with  many  noble  gifts  of  mind  and  body, 

He  preserved  through  all  vicissitudes  of  fortune 

A  loving  heart  and  stainless  honour  ; 

And  having  won  in  all  his  various  Cures 

The  respect  and  affection  of  his  people, 

And  ruled  the  Parish  of  Chelsea  well  and  wisely 

For  more  than  twenty  years, 

ile  died  peacefully  in  the  fear  of  God  and  in  the  faith  of  Christ 

On  the  29th  of  February,  iS6o, 

Aged  7S  years, 

With  many  friends,  and  not  an  enemy  on  earth  ; 

Leaving  to  his  children  as  a  precious  heritage 

The  example  of  a  Gentleman  and  a  Christian," 

To  Mr.  Maurice  he  writes  — 


The  Everslcy    Churchyard.  305 

Chelsea,  March,  i860. 

*'  I  have  been  so  hunted  backwards  and  forwards  to  Everslev 
«ind  hither,  upon  trying  business  at  both  places,  that  I  have  not  had 
rime  to  thank  you  for  your  kind  and  comforting  letter.  My  pool 
deal'  mother  broke  down  frightfully  for  a  day  or  t/vo  after  the  fune- 

ra. ;  but  the  necessity  of  exertion  is  keeping  her  up  now. is 

here,  as  a  ministering  angel,  doing  everything  for  her,  and  we  hope 
in  a  week  or  two  to  get  her  down  to  her  quiet  little  cottage  at 
^versley,  to  end  her  days  with  us.  Ah,  Mr.  Maurice,  such  times 
as  these  bring  conviction  of  sin  with  them.  How  every  wrong 
word  and  deed  toward  that  good  old  man,  and  every  sorrow  \ 
caused  him,  rise  up  in  judgment  against  one,  and  how  one  feels 
that  right  doing  does  not  atone  for  wrong  doing.  I  have  this  com- 
fort, that  he  died  loving  me,  and  satisfied  with  me  and  my  small  suc- 
cess, and  happy  in  his  children,  as  he  said  again  and  again.  But  if 
death — at  least  the  death  of  a  rational  human  being — be  not  an 
ugly  damnable  solecism,  even  in  a  good  old  age,  then  I  know  not 
what  is.  1  shall  see  and  hear  you,  please  God,  Sunday  afternoon. 
Remember  me." 

He  was  called  away  from  Chelsea  to  be  present  at  the  enlarge 
ment  and  consecration  of  his  churchyard  at  Eversley,  and  to  meet 
his  bishop  (Dr.  Sumner),  whose  coming,  as  he  had  never  been  in 
Eversley  before,  was  a  great  event.  I'he  new  ground  gave  the 
Rector  the  opportunity  of  planting  the  whole  with  evergreens,  for 
it  had  long  been  his  wish  to  make  his  churchyard  an  arboretum, 
and  gradually  to  gather  together  rare  shrubs  and  trees,  so  that  it 
should  be  truly  a  Gottesacker  in  a  double  sense.  He  writes  to 
his  wife,  then  at  Chelsea  : 

Eversley,  March  10. 

'*  .  .  I  can  understand  your  being  unhappy  leaving  us  and  this 
delicious  place  again.  It  does  loojv  too  blessed  for  a  man  to  spend 
his  life  in.  I  have  been  making  it  blessed-er  in  the  last  thirty  hours, 
with  a  good  will ;  for  I  and  B.  (his  churchwarden)  have  been  work' 
ing  with  our  own  hands,  as  hard  as  the  four  men  we  have  got  on. 
We  have  planted  all  the  shrubs  in  the  churchyard.  We  have  gra:-- 
oiled  the  new  path  with  fine  gravel,  and  edged  it  with  turf;  we 
have  levelled,  delved,  planned,  and  plotted  ;  and  pressed  into  the 

service  that  most  cockney  of  good  fellows ,  making  liim  work 

like  a  horse,  in  carrying  wa.ter.  M.  is  trinnning  up  unsightly 
graves,  and  we  shall  be  all  right  and  ready  for  the  Bishop  by 
Monday 

"  Altogether  I  am  delighted  at  the  result  and  feel  better,  thanks 
to  two  days'  hard  work  with  pick  and  spade,  than  [  have  done  foi 
20 


3o6  Charhs  Kin^sley. 

a  fi)rtniglit.     So  never  iiiind  about  me.     .     .     .  But  I  cannot  beai 

working  and  pk\nning  at  improvements  without  you  ;  it  seems  but 
half  a  life  ;  and  I  am  leaving  everything  I  can  (considering  the 
bishop  on  Monday)  to  be  done  after  you  come  back.  Oh  !  when 
shall  we  settle  down  here  in  peace  and  see  the  spring  come  en  ? 
Patience,  though. — It  wants  three  weeks  to  spring,  and  we  may,  by 
God's  blessing,  get  back  here  in  time  to  see  the  spring  unfold 
around  us,  and  all  mend  and  thrive.  After  all,  how  few  troubles 
we  have  !  for  God  gives  with  one  hand,  if  He  takes  away  with  the 

other I  found  a  new  competitor  for  the  corner  of  the 

new  ground,  just  under  our  great  fir  tree,  which  I  had  always 
marked  out  for  you  and  me,  in  dear  old  Bannister  (his  churchwar- 
den, a  fanner),  who  had  been  telling  M.  that  he  wanted  to  be 
buried  close  to  me.     So  I  have  kept  a  corner  for  ourselves  ;  and 

then  he  comes  at  our  feet,  and  by  our  side insists  on  lying. 

Be  it  so.  If  we  could  -^e  the  children  grown  up,  and  the  History  * 
written,  what  do  I  need,  or  you  either  below?" 

The  vacant  space  by  the  side  of  his  own  proposed  grave  was 
soon  to  have  a  tenant  he  little  dreamt  of,  for  in  the  spring  an- 
other heavy  sorrow  came — and  one  to  whom  he  had  been  more 
than  a  brother  in  some  of  the  most  important  circumstances  of  her 
life  for  the  last  sixteen  years,  his  wife's  sister,  Charlotte,  wife  of 
Anthony  Froude,  was  laid  there  under  the  shade  of  the  fir  trees 
she  loved  so  well.  Her  grave  was  to  him  during  the  remaindei  of 
his  own  life  a  sacred  spot,  where  he  would  go  almost  daily  to 
commune  in  spirit  with  the  dead,  where  flowers  were  always  kept 
blooming,  and  where  on  the  Sunday  morning  he  would  himself  su- 
perintend the  decorations — the  cross  and  wreaths  of  choice  flowers 
placed  by  loving  hands  upon  it. 

Death  was  very  busy  that  year  among  those  he  loved,  and  before 
twelve  months  were  over  three  of  those  who  stood  around  that  grave, 
a  brother,  a  nephew,  and  a  friend^  John  Ashley  Warre,  Charle^i 
Grenfell,  and  Mr.  John  Parker,  were  all  called  away  into  the  un- 
seen world. 

The  latter,  piiblislier,  of  West  Strand,  London,  who  had  been 
fellow  student  with  Charles  Kingsley,  at  King's  College,  London, 
and  with  whom  he  had  renewed  his  old  intimacy  at  the  publication 
of  the  '-Saint's  Ti  vgedy,"  was  a  constant  visitor  at  the  Rectory. 

*  Before  his  z.\  p;);ntment  at  Cambridge  he  had  begun  a  "  S,.hool  H  story  ol 
England,"  of  whicli  only  the  three  fust  chapters  were  written. 


The  Future,  307 

At  Mr.  Parker's  house  in  I^ondon  he  had  met  tl f  very  best  liter- 
ary society  whenever  he  had  an  evening  to  spare  away  from  hctme, 
and  his  death  made  a  great  gap  in  the  knot  of  remarkable  men  who 
had  gathered  round  him.  In  a  letter  to  one  of  these,  Mr.  Skel 
ton,  Mi.  Kingsley  thus  speaks  of  him  : — 

"I  trust  if  you  come  to  London  you  will  take  courage  to  come 
forty  miles  farther  to  Eversley.  You  will  meet  there,  not  only  foi 
your  own  sake  but  for  John  Parker's,  a  most  cordial  welcome. 
Before  our  window  lies  the  grave  of  one  whom  he  adored,  my 
wife's  favorite  sister.  He  was  at  her  funeral.  The  next  funenil 
which  her  widowed  husband  and  I  attended  was  his  :  P'roude 
nursed  him  like  a  brother  till  the  moment  of  death.  His  was 
a  great  soul  in  a  pigmy  body ;  and  those  who  know  how  I  loved 
him,  know  what  a  calumny  it  is  to  say  that  I  preach  '  muscu^ai 
Christianity.'  " 

TO     JOHN    BULLAE,    ESQ. 

Eversley,  i860. 

"  I  am  getting  all  right  now,  by  dint  of  much  riding  with  my 
boy,  who  is  home  for  Easter.  Riding  has  a  specific  effect  on  me, 
both  on  body  and  mind,  and  I  hardly  know  how  I  should  keep 
well  without  it.  I  hope  you  have  not  suffered,  like  me,  with  this 
gale.  Two  of  the  prettiest  trees  on  my  lawn  (and  I  have  some 
very  pretty  ones)  came  down  with  a  crash  this  morning,  and  I  have 
had  the  melancholy  pleasure  and  exercise  of  dismembering  ancient 
friends.  When  spring  is  coming,  I  cannot  guess.  My  hope  is  that 
this  gale  will  'blow  the  weather  out,'  as  sailors  say;  and  that  we 
shall  have  a  sudden  turn  to  thunder,  heat,  and  rain.  I  have  s^en 
this  happen  several  times,  just  at  this  season.     .     .     . 

"  I  am  utterly  astonished  at  your  courage  in  letting  your  wife  go 
to  Egypt.  I  have  just  let  mine  go  to  Devonshire  without  me, 
to  nurse  a  sick  sister,  and  I  feel  like  a  cat  without  its  skin." 

After  he  had  taken  his  M.A.  degree  he  writes  from  the  north  to 
his  wife — 

"  I  have  been  thinking  and  praying  a  good  deal  over  my  future 
life.  A  new  era  has  opened  for  me  :  I  feel  much  older,  anxious, 
and  full  of  responsibility  ;  but  more  cheerful  and  settled  than  I 
have  done  for  a  long  time.  All  that  book  writing  and  struggling 
is  over,  and  a  settled  position  and  work  is  before  me.  Would  that 
it  were  done,  the  children  settled  in  life,  and  kindly  death  near  to 
set  one  off  again  with  a  new  start  somewhere  else.  I  should  like 
the  only  epitaph  on  our  tomb  to  be  Thekla's  : 

"  '  We  have  lived  and  loved, 
W&live  and  love.'" 


3o8  Charles  Kingsley. 

No  book  was  written  this  year,  his  spare  time  being  given  to  the 
preparation  of  his  Inaugural  Lecture  at  Cambridge,  and  the  course 
of  Lectures  which  was  to  follow  it.  By  command  of  the  Prince 
Consort,  he  preached  the  annual  sermon  for  the  Trinity  House,  of 
which  H.R.H.  was  then  Master.  He  preached  also  at  Whitehall, 
Windsor  Castle,  and  St.  James's.  He  was  made  chaplain  to  the 
Civil  Service  Volunteers ;  he  lectured  at  Warminster  and  Bury  St. 
Edmund's.  A  few  weeks'  rest  in  Ireland  with  Mr.  Froude,  helped 
him  greatly  in  preparing  for  his  career  in  Cambridge,  and  at  Mark- 
lee  Castle  he  killed  his  first  salmon,  a  new  and  long  coveted 
experience  in  life. 

Markree  Castle,  Sligo,  July  4,  i86a 

" ....  I  have  done  the  deed  at  last — killed  a  real  actual 
live  salmon,  over  five  pounds  weight,  and  lost  a  whopper  from 
light  hooking.  Here  they  are  by  hundreds,  and  just  as  easy  to 
catch  as  trout ;  and  if  the  wind  would  get  out  of  the  north,  I  couid 
catch  fifty  pounds  of  them  in  a  day.  This  place  is  full  of  glory — 
very  lovely,  and  well  kept  up.     .     .     . 

"  But  I  am  haunted  by  the  human  chimpanzees  I  saw  along  that 
hundred  miles  of  horrible  country.  I  don't  believe  they  are  our 
fault.  I  believe  there  are  not  only  many  more  of  them  than  of 
old,  but  that  they  are  happier,  better,  more  comfortably  fed  and 
lodged  under  our  rule  than  they  ever  were.  But  to  see  white 
chimi^anzees  is  dreadful ;  if  they  were  black,  one  would  not  feel  it 
so  much,  but  their  skins,  except  where  tanned  by  exposure,  are  as 
white  as  ours.  Tell  Rose  I  will  get  her  plants.  1  have  got  the 
great  Butterwort  already;  very  fine.     .     .     ." 

"  I  had  magnificent  sport  this  morning — five  salmon  killed  (big- 
gest, seven  pounds),  and  another  huge  fellow  ran  right  away  to  sea, 
carrying  me  after  him  waist  deep  in  water,  and  was  lost,  after 
running  200  yards,  by  fouling  a  ship's  hawser !  There  is  nothing 
like  it.  The  excitement  is  maddening,  and  the  exertion  very 
severe.  I  am  going  to  sleep  for  two  hours,  having  been  up  at 
four " 


The  summer  of  i860  was  a  very  wet  one.  Rain  fell  almost  in 
cessantly  for  three  months.  The  farmers  were  frightened,  and  the 
clergy  all  over  the  country  began  to  use  the  prayer  against  rain, 
llie  cholera  had  1  )ng  been  threatening  England,  and  Mr.  Kings- 
ley's  knowledge  of  physical  and  sanitary  science  had  told  him  how 
beneficial  this  heavy  rain  was  — a  gift  fsom  God  at  that  particulai 


Sir  Charles  Lyell  and  ihe  Rain  Question.    309 

moment  to  waid  olT  the  enemy  which  was  at  hand,  by  cleansing 
drains  and  sweej^ng  away  refuse,  and  giving  the  poor  an  abundance 
of  sweet  clean  water.  It  was  a  notable  fact  that  while  ignorant 
people  were  crying  out  against  the  rain,  the  chemists  complained 
that  there  was  so  little  illness  they  had  nothing  to  do,  and  the 
medical  men  pronounced  it  to  be  a  very  healthy  season.  The 
parishioners  of  Eversley,  however,  remonstrated  with  him  for  not 
using  the  prayer  for  line  weather,  and  he  answered  them  by  preach- 
ing a  sermon  on  Matth.  vii.  9-1 1,  which  provoked  much  discussion, 
and  was  pubHshed  under  the  title  of  "  Why  should  we  pray  for  fail 
weather  ?  " 

On  this  subject  Sir  Charles  Lyell  writes  to  Mr.  Kingsley: — 

London,  September  23,  i860. 

"  On  my  return  from  the  Continent,  I  find  here  your  excellent 
sermon  on  the  prayer  for  rain,  sent  to  me,  I  presume,  by  your  di- 
rection, and  for  which  1  return  you  many  thanks.  Two  weeks 
ago,  I  happened  to  remark  to  a  stranger,  who  was  sitting  next  me 
at  a  table  d'hote  at  Rudoldstadt  in  Thuringia,  that  I  feared  the 
rains  must  have  been  doing  a  great  deal  of  mischief.  He  turned 
out  to  be  a  scientific  man  from  Berlin,  and  replied,  '  I  should  think 
they  were  much  needed  to  replenish  the  springs,  after  three  years 
of  drought.' 

"  1  immediately  felt  that  I  had  made  an  idle  and  thoughtless 
speech.  Some  thirty  years  ago  I  was  told  at  Bonn  of  two  proces- 
sions of  peasants,  who  had  climbed  to  the  top  of  the  Peter's  Berg, 
one  composed  of  vine-dressers,  who  were  intending  to  return 
thanks  for  sunshine,  and  pray  for  its  continuance  :  the  others  from 
a  corn  district,  wanting  the  drought  to  cease  and  the  rain  to  fall. 
Each  were  eager  to  get  possession  of  the  shrine  of  St.  Peter's 
Chapel  before  the  other,  to  secure  the  saint's  good  offices,  so  they 
came  to  blows  with  fists  and  sticks,  much  to  the  amusement  of  the 
Protestant  heretics  at  Bonn,  who,  I  hope,  did  not  by  such  prayers 
r.s  you  allude  to,  commit  the  same  solecism,  occasionally,  only  less 
coarsely  carried  out  into  action." 

In  the  following  winter  Mr.  Kingsley  writes  from  Eversley  to  Sir 
Charles  Bunbury  on  the  same  topic. 

"The  frost  here  is  intense  and  continuous.  The  result,  the  per- 
fect health  of  everybody.  Of  course,  sufficient  food  and  firing  are 
required.  But  much  that  I  have  seen  of  late  years  (and  this  frost 
inter  alia)  proves  to  me  that  the  most  'genial'  wea'her  is  not  the 
healthiest.  . 


3IO  Char  lei.   Kingshy. 

"  I  havo  been  called  names,  as  though  I  had  been  a  really/  selfish 
and  cruel  man,  for  a  foolish  '  Ode  to  the  North-East  Wind.'  If  my 
cockney  critics  had  been  country  parsons,  they  would  hav^e  been 
more  merciful,  when  they  saw  me,  as  I  have  been  more  than  once, 
utterly  ill  from  attendmg  increasing  sick  cases  during  a  soft  south- 
west November  of  rain  and  roses  ;  and  then,  released  by  a  h.ard 
frost,  my  visits  stopped  in  a  few  days  by  the  joyful  answer,  '  Thank 
God,  we  are  getting  all  well  now,  in  this  beautiful  seasonable 
weather.'  '  Seasonable  weather ' — that  expression  has  taught  me 
much.  In  the  heart  of  the  English  laborer  and  fanner,  unsophisti- 
cated by  any  belief  that  the  Virgin  Mary  or  the  saints  can  coax  the 
Higher  Powers  into  sending  them  a  shower  or  a  sunbeam,  if  they 
be  sufficiently  coaxed  and  flattered  themselves — into  their  hearts 
and  minds  has  sunk  a  deep  belief  that  God  is  just  and  wise,  and 
orders  all  things  well,  according  to  a  'law  which  cannot  be  broken.' 
A  certain  sermon  of  mine  about  the  rains,  which  shocked  the  clergy 
of  all  denominations,  pleased  deeply,  thank  God,  my  own  laborers 
and  farmers.  They  first  thanked  me  heartily  for  it,  and  begged  for 
copies  of  it.  I  then  began  to  see  (what  1  ought  to  have  seen  long 
before)  that  the  belief  in  a  good  and  just  God  is  the  foundation,  if 
not  of  a  scientific  habit  of  mmd,  still  of  a  habit  of  mind  into  which 
science  can  fall,  and  seed,  and  bring  forth  fruit  in  good  ground.  I 
learnt  from  that  to  solve  a  puzzle  which  had  long  disturbed  me — 
why  the  French  philosophers  of  the  last  century,  denying  and 
scoffing  at  much  which  I  hold  true  and  dear,  had  still  been  not  only 
men  of  science,  but  men  who  did  good  work  in  their  time.  They 
believed,  even  Voltaire,  in  a  good  God — at  least  they  said,  '  If  God 
is  at  all.  He  is  good,  just,  and  wise.'  That  thought  enabled  them 
at  once  to  face  scientific  fact,  and  to  testify  against  cruelty,  oppres- 
sion, ignorance,  and  all  the  works  of  darkness  wherever  they  found 
them.  And  so  I  learnt  to  thank  God  for  men  who  seemed  not  to 
believe  in  Him,  and  to  value  more  and  more  the  moral  instincts  of 
men,  as  a  deeper  and  more  practical  theology  than  their  dogmas 
about  God.  Excuse  this  tirade.  But  you  are  one  of  the  few  per- 
sons to  whom  I  can  speak  my  whole  heart.     . 

"  Meanwhile,  you  would  exceedingly  oblige  me  by  telling  me 
where  the  geology  of  Palestine  is  described.  I  cannot  get  trust- 
w  orthy  information  about  it.  Lynch  and  the  man  who  went  some 
years  ago  to  look  for  coal,  tell  me  very  little  ;  and  though  Lord 
Lindsay  has  some  hints  about  the  volcanic  appearances  north  of 
the  Lake  Tiberias,  he  tells  one  nothing  about  the  age  and  supei 
position  of  the  beds.  It  seems  strange  that  so  little  should  be 
known  about  one  of  the  most  remarkable  volcanic  districts  of  the 
world.  The  age  of  the  normal  limestones  ;  of  the  bitumen  beds  of 
the  Dead  Sea;  of  the  Edomite  mountains;  and  of  the  recent  (?) 
volcanic  rocks  of  the  north,  all  ought  to  be  known  by  some  one  or 
Other      But  most  who  have  gone  have  wafted  their  tine  in  looking 


hiaugural  Lccttire  at  Cambridge,  311 

for  the  *  Cities  of  ihe  Plain,'  instead  of  collecting  sour.d  physical 
facts.  Some  have  been  afraid,  it  seemed  to  me,  of  looking  at  the 
physical  facts  too  closely,  for  fear  of  coming  to  some  '  rationalist ' 
conclusion." 

in  the  autumn  the  new  Professor  went  up  to  Cambridge.  *'  It  is 
with  a  feeling  of  awe,  almost  of  fear,  that  I  find  myself  in  such  a 
place  on  such  an  errand,"  he  said  when  he  delivered  his  Inaugural 
Lecture  *  in  the  crowded  Senate  House  on  the  12th  of  November. 
He  had  an  enthusiastic  welcome  from  the  undergraduates,  and 
the  lecture,  which  was  published  under  the  title  of  "The  Limits  of 
Exact  Science  applied  to  History,"  was  listened  to  with  profound 
attention,  and  most  kindly  received  by  all  ranks  in  the  university. 
He  now  settled  in  Cambridge  with  his  family  till  Christinas,  and 
began  his  first  course  of  lectures,  eventually  published  as  "The 
Roman  and  the  Teutoi>,  to  a  class  of  upwards  of  one  hundred 
undergraduates,  and  during  the  nine  years  of  his  professorship  his 
class  was  one  of  the  best  attended  in  the  university.  His  residence 
in  Cambridge  enabled  him  to  cultivate  one  of  the  most  valuable 
friendships  of  his  life,  that  of  Sir  Charles  Fox  Bunbury,  of  Bartorv 
Hall,  Suffolk,  at  whose  house,  rich  in  itself  with  works  of  art,  and 
with  a  museum  and  arboretum,  in  which  he  delighted,  he  had  the 
rare  pleasure  of  meeting,  year  by  year,  men  distinguished  in  science. 
in  literature,  and  in  society.  There  he  first  met  Sir  Charles  Lyell, 
Sir  Edmund  Head,  Dr.  Joseph  Hooker,  and  Sir  Louis  Mallet,  and 
renewed  his  friendship  with  Lord  Arthur  Harvey  (now  Bishop  0/ 
Bath  and  Wells),  and  his  happy  days  at  Barton,  which  became  3 
second  home  to  himself  and  his  t'amily,  were  a  constant  refresl> 
raent  to  his  spirit. 

*'  I  cannot  understand,"  he  says,  with  characteristic  modesty,  in 
3  letter  to  Sir  Charles,  after  one  of  his  first  visits  to  him,  "the  kind 
TTords  which  you  use  about  my  visit  to  you.  That  you  should 
speak  so  kindly  of  a  poor  stammering  superficial  person  like  me, 
shows  me  only  that  there  are  more  good  and  kind  and  tolerant 
people  in  the  world  than  I  looked  for,  and  I  knew  there  were 
many     .     .     .     ." 

The  friendship  he  so  dearly  prized  was  mutual.     But  Sir  Charles's 

"  The  Inaugural  Lecture  is  now  incorporated  witli  the  new  edition  of  th« 
•  R^nian  and  t}ie  i  euton,"  with  a  pieface  by  Max  Miiller.     (MacinUan.) 


312  Charles  Kiiigsley. 

generous  appicciution  must  be  told  in  his  ovvn  words  in  a  letter  te 
Mrs.  Kingsley. 

BarI'ON,  October  i8,  li^JJ. 

"I  have  lost  in  him,"  he  says.  '*an  invaluable  friend  ;  one  whom 
for  many  years  past  I  have  truly  loved  and  revered,  and  who  has 
left  a  blank,  that,  for  me,  can  never  be  filled  up.  I  scarcely  ever 
Viras  in  his  company  without  learning  something  from  him.  Much 
as  I  like  and  admire  his  writings — to  many  of  wiiich  I  return  again 
and  again  with  fresh  pleasure — his  conversation  was  much  more 
delightful  than  his  books.  I  have  very  seldom,  if  ever,  known  a 
man  whose  talk  was  so  charming,  so  rich  in  matter,  so  various, 
so  easy  and  unassuming,  so  instructive  and  so  free  from  dogmatism. 
Sensibility,  humor,  wisdom,  were  most  happily  blended  in  it.  Many 
r.  long  conversation  I  have  enjoyed  with  him,  and  the  remembrance 
of  them  will  always  be  precious  to  me  ;  but  I  continually  regret 
that  my  memory  could  not  retain  more  of  what  I  heard  from  him. 
Our  talk  often  turned  upon  subjects  of  natural  science,  in  which 
he  delighted,  and  of  which  his  knowledge  was  extensive  and  sound. 
He  more  than  once  said  to  me  that,  if  circumstances  had  allowed 
him  leisure,  botany,  and  natural  history  in  general,  would  have 
been  bis  favorite  studies.  We  passed  many  hours  (delightful  tc 
me)  in  examining  together  my  botanical  collections,  and  discussing 
the  questions  which  they  suggested.  His  remarlis  were  always 
instructive  and  valuable.  He  had  not,  indeed,  had  leisure  to 
prosecute  those  elaborate  researches,  or  to  acquire  that  vast  knowl- 
edge of  details,  which  belong  to  the  great  masters  of  science  ; 
but  his  knowledge  was  by  no  means  superficial.  He  had  mastered 
the  leading  princij^les  and  great  outlmes  of  scientific  natural  his 
tory,  in  its  principal  branches  ;  and  the  large  generalizations  ir. 
which  he  delighted,  were  based  on  a  well-directed  study  of  facts, 
both  in  books  and  in  nature, 

"  He  had  the  true  naturalist's  eye  for  quick  and  acute  observa- 
tion ;  the  philosopher's  love  of  large  views  and  general  principles ; 
the  poet's  faculty  of  throwing  a  glow  of  light  upon  the  objects 
which  he  wished  to  illustrate.  This  combination  of  powers  gave 
a  peculiar  charm  to  his  descriptions  of  natural  objects,  as  is  well 
exemplified  in  his  West  Indian  book  and  in  many  parts  of  his 
essays,  esj^ecially  in  'From  Ocean  to  Sea,'  'My  Winter  Garden,' 
and  '  Chalk  Stream  Studies.'  1  think  it  a  great  loss  to  science  that 
he  was  not  able  to  carry  out  a  plan  which,  as  he  told  me,  he  had 
formed  ; — that  of  writing  the  Natural  History  of  his  own  district, 
the  district  of  the  Bagshot  sands.  He  would  have  made  of  it  a 
wor  i  of  remarkable  interest. 

"Another  quality  of  Mr.  Kingsley,  by  which  I  was  particularly 
(truck  in  the  course  cf  out  discussions  on  these  subjects,  was  hia 


Mr.  Ki7igsleys  Modesty.  31.3 

remarkable  modesty,  indeed  humility.  He  never  dogmatized; 
never  put  himself  forward  as  an  authority  ;  was  always  ready  to 
welcome  any  suggestion  from  a  fellow-laborer ;  and  indeed  always 
seemed  more  anxious  to  learn  than  to  teach.  I  have  been  tempted 
to  dwell,  perhaps  too  long,  on  one  aspect  only  of  his  character  and 
genius  ;  but  I  believe  you  wish  to  have  my  impression  of  him  in 
this  point  of  view.  His  higher  qualities  are  indeed  more  generally 
known,  through  his  writings,  and  I  will  not  attempt  to  expatiate  or 
a  theme,  to  which  more  justice  may  be  done  by  others.  I  can 
safely  say  that  he  was  one  of  the  best  men  I  have  known  ;  his 
conversation  was  not  only  agreeable,  but  had  a  constant  tendency 
to  make  one  wiser  and  better ;  and  when  it  was  directed  to  spe- 
cially religious  topics,  his  tone  of  feeling  and  thought  appeared  to 
me  both  elevating  and  comforting.  I  shall  ever  feel  grateful  foi 
having  been  allowed  to  enjoy  the  friendship  of  such  a  man. 
"  Beheve  me, 

"  My  Dear  Mrs.  Kingsley. 

"  Ever  yours  affectioi  ately, 

"Charles  J.  F.  Bjneury." 


CHAPTER  XX r. 

t86i— 1862. 
Aged  42-43. 

v^iibiidge- Lectures  tc  lie  Prince  of  Wales — Essays  sli.  i  Re%iews-  Letters  to 
r  ".  Stanley — Bishop  of  Winchester — Tracts  for  Priests  and  People  — Leath  of 
me  Prince  Consort— Letter  to  Sir  C.  Bunbury — The  Water-babies— Installa- 
tion Ode  at  Cambridge — Visit  to  Scotland — British  Association — Lord  Dun- 
dreary. 

*  The  longer  I  live,  ihe  more  certain  I  am,"  said  Sir  T.  Fowell 
Buxton,  "  that  the  great  ditference  between  men,  the  feeble  and 
the  powerful,  the  great  and  the  insignificant,  is  energy  and  invin- 
cible determination — a  purpose  once  fixed,  and  then  death  or  vic- 
tory. That  quality  will  do  anything  that  can  be  done  in  this 
world  ;  and  no  talents,  no  circumstances,  no  opportunities,  will 
make  a  two-legged  creature  a  man  without  it." 

It  was  this  very  invincible  determination  and  energy  which  car- 
ried Charles  Kingsley  through  work,  and  sonielimes  a  distracting 
confusion  of  different  works,  and  which  preserved  his  often  weary 
body  and  exhausted  brain  from  breaking  down  entirely  :  but  more 
than  this,  it  was  his  child-like  faith  m  God  which  kept  him  not  only 
free  from  the  iriitability  so  common  to  all  highly-strung  natures, 
but  cheerful  and  brave  under  every  circumstance. 

The  weight  of  responsibility  that  pressed  heavily  on  him  during 
this  year  was  added  to  by  the  duty  and  honor  of  giving  private  lec- 
tures to  H.R.H.  the  Prince  of  Wales,  who  had  just  left  Oxford, 
•in'  kept  the  usual  terms  at  Cambridge  during  1861.  On  the  2nd 
( i  Jc*nuary,  Mr.  Kingsley  received  through  the  Prince's  tutor,  Mr. 
Herbert  Fir.her,  a  message  from  the  Prince  Consort  on  the  subject 
of  his  son's  studies,  informing  him  how  they  had  been  conducted  at 
(^K'brd — how  a  special  class  had  been  formed  there  for  instruction 
in  Modern  History,  which  instruction  had  been  carrie  I  up  to  the 
roign  of  William  III. — what  book  had  been  used,  &c.,  and  request- 
ing the  Cambridge  Professt^r  to  consult  Dr.  Whewell,  then  Master 
of  Trinity,  as  to  the  undergraduates  who  should  attend  with  the 
Prince.     To  this  Mr.  Kingsley  replied  : 


Lectures  to  the  Prince  of  Wales.  3  [5 

EVERSLEY  Rectory,  Jamiary  2,   1871. 

*' Do  me  the  kindness  to  inform  the  Prince  Consort  that  hii 
■fishes  are,  of  course,  commands  to  me. 

"  I  shall  have  great  pleasure  in  following  out  the  excellent 
njethod  sketched  for  me  in  your  letter,  and  in  putting  myself  into 
Dr.  Whewell's  hands  as  to  the  formation  of  a  special  class  for  Hia 
Royal  Highness. 

'■  Any  information  which  you  can  give  me  I  shall  most  thank- 
ful 1)'  accept  and  use.  I  put  myself  entirely  into  your  hands,  both 
as  the  expounder  of  the  Prince  Consort's  wishes,  and  as  the  Prince 
of  Wales's  tutor.  The  responsibility  is  too  solemn  and  too  sudden 
for  me  to  act  in  any  way  upon  my  own  private  judgment  in 
(he  matter. 

"  The  first  question  which  I  have  to  ask  is — up  to  what  year  in 
the  i8th  century  I  ought  to  extend  my  lectures?" 

The  class  was  accordingly  formed,  and  the  names  selected  by 
the  Rev.  W.  Mathison,  senior  Tutor  of  Trinity,  subject  to  Dr. 
Whewell's  approval,  were  sent  in  to  the  Professor.* 

Early  in  Februai-y  the  Prince  of  Wales  settled  at  M adingley,  and 
rode  in  three  times  a  week  to  Mr.  Kingsley's  house,  for  lectures, 
twice  with  the  class,  and  every  Saturday  to  go  through  a  resume  of 
the  week's  work  alone. 

During  the  course  of  the  academical  year  the  Professor  carried 
the  class  up  to  the  reign  of  George  IV.  ;  and  at  the  end  of  each 
term  he  set  questions  for  the  Prince,  which  were  always  most  satis- 
factorily answered.  Throughout  this  year  the  sense  of  responsi- 
bility which  would  otherwise  have  been  overpowering,  was  relieved 
not  only  by  the  intense  interest  of  the  work,  in  which  he  was 
allowed  perfect  freedom  of  si)eech,  but  by  the  attention,  courtesy, 
and  intelligence  of  his  Royal  pupil,  whose  kindness  to  him  then 
and  in  after-life,  made  him  not  only  H.R.H.'s  loyal,  but  his  most 
attached  servant. 

But  the  year  ended  sadly,  and  his  intercourse  with  the  Prince  of 
Wales  was  brought  to  an  abrupt  termination  by  the  death  of  the 

*  Mr.  Lee  Warner,  of  St.  John's  College,  lately  head  of  Rugby  School.  Mr. 
Stuart,  Rugby,  of  St.  John's.  Mr.  Main,  of  St.  John's,  the  best  matliematiciau 
of  his  year,  in  his  third  year.  Mr.  Cay,  of  Caius  College,  a  freshman,  who  had 
just  obtained  an  open  scholarship.  Lord  John  Hervey,  Trinity.  Hon.  C. 
Lyttleton,  Trinity.  Mr.  Hamilton,  Trinity.  Mr.  C.  Wood,  son  of  Right 
Hon.  Sir  Charles  Wood.  Hon.  Henry  Strutt,  Trinity.  Mr.  A.  W.  Elliott, 
fresliman  of  T'inity.     And  later  in  the  year,  Mr.  George  Howard,  of  Trii  ity. 


3i6  Charles  Kings  ley. 

* 
Prince  Consort  which  threw  a  gbom  all  over   England,  and  wag 
felt  as  a  deep  personal  grief,  as  well  as  a  national  loss,  by  every  one 
who  had  had  the  privilege  of  coming  in  personal  contact  with  His 
Royal  Highness. 

Mr.  Kingsiey's  professional  duties  with  the  Prince  of  Wales 
obliged  him  to  keep  all  the  terms  at  Cambridge,  only  returning  to 
Eversley  for  the  long  vacation  j  and  as  his  curate  was  in  deacon's 
orders,  his  friend,  the  Rev.  Septimus  Hansard  (now  Rector  of 
Bethnal  Green),  kindly  consented  to  live  at  the  Rectory  during  his 
absence,  to  take  the  lead  in  the  Sunday  services,  and  superintend 
the  parish  work.  His  able  assistance  relieved  the  Rector's  anxiety, 
while  it  strengthened  their  mutual  friendship. 

About  this  period  "  Essays  and  Reviews "  came  out,  and  the 
following  letter  shows  Mr.  Kingsiey's  impression  of  the  attitude  of 
Cambridge  at  the  publication  : 

TO    REV.   ARTHUR    PENRHYN    STANLEY. 

Cambridge,  February  19,  1861, 

"  Cambridge  lies  in  magnificent  repose,  and  shaking  lazy  ears 
stares  at  her  more  nervous  elder  sister  and  asks  what  it  is  all 
about. 

"  She  will  not  persecute  the  authors  of  the  Essays  ;  and  what  is 
more,  any  scraps  of  the  Simeonite  party,  now  moribund  here,  who 
try  to  get  up  a  persecution,  will  be  let  alone — and  left  to  persecute 
on  their  own  hook.  That  is  the  Cambridge  danger.  Cool  indif- 
ferentism  :  not  to  the  doctrines,  but  to  the  means  of  fighting  for 
them. 

"The  atmosphere  is  the  most  liberal  (save  'Bohemia')  which  I 
rvei  lived  in.  And  it  is  a  liberality  (not  like  that  of  Bohemia,  of 
want  of  principle  or  creed),  but  of  real  scholarly  largeness  and 
lovingness  between  men  who  disagree.  We  'live  and  let  live'  here, 
I  find,  to  my  delight.  But  with  that  will  come  the  feeling — in  which, 
[  confess,  I  share — what  the  plague  had  these  men  to  do,  starting 
a  guerilla  raid  into  the  enemy's  country,  on  their  own  responsibilit)-  ? 
We  are  no  more  answerable  for  them,  than  for  Garibaldi.  If  they 
fail,  they  must  pay  the  penalty.  They  did  not  ask  us — thty  called 
no  synod  of  the  Broad  Church — consulted  no  mass  of  scholars,  as 
to  what  could  or  could  not  be  done  just  now.  They  go  and  levy 
war  on  their  own  account,  and  each  fnan  on  his  own  account. 
Each  one  of  us  might  make  himself  responsible  for  one  essay.  But 
being  published  together,  one  does  become  responsible  for  all  or 
none;  and  that  I  won't  be,  nor  any  nan  in  Cambridge.  I  would 
not  even  be  responsible  for  *  *  *  's  Article,  muclv  as  I  trust  and 


Ca^nbridge  and  the  Essays.  3x7 

respect  hitv..  The  world,  mind,  does  take  one  as  all,  and  all  as  one. 
The  '  Essays  and  Reviews'  are  one  book  in  the  mind  of  the  world 
and  if  they  were  not  meant  to  be,  they  should  not  have  been  pub- 
lished in  one  volume.  This  is  what  Cambridge  (and  I)  feel,  as  far 
as  I  can  ascertain. 

"  Next.  There  is  little  or  nothing,  says  Cambridge,  in  that  book 
which  we  have  not  all  of  us  been  through  already.  Doubts,  denials, 
destructions — we  have  faced  them  till  we  are  tired  of  them.  But 
we  have  faced  them  in  silence,  hoping  to  find  a  positive  solution. 
Here  comes  a  book  which  states  all  the  old  doubts  and  difficulties, 
and  gives  us  nothing  instead.  Here  are  men  still  pulling  down, 
with  far  weaker  hands  than  the  Germans,  from  whom  they  borrow, 
and  building  up  nothitig  instead.  So  we  will  preserve  a  stoic  calm. 
We  wish  them  all  well.  We  will  see  fair  play  for  them,  according 
to  the  forms  of  English  law  and  pubUc  opinion.  But  they  must 
fight  their  own  battle.  We  cannot  be  responsible  for  other  men's 
campaigns. 

"  This,  I  think,  is  the  feeling  of  Cambridge.  I  do  not  expect, 
from  what  I  hear,  that  you  will  have  any  manifesto  against  Essays 
and  Reviews.  *  *  *  of  *  *  *  and  *  *  *  may  get  up  something,  and 
cowards  and  trimmers  may  sign  it,  for  fear  of  committing  them- 
selves ;  but  I  think  they  will  win  little  but  wind  by  their  movement, 
and  that   '  they  may  bottle  if  it  will  help  them.' 


TO    THE    LORD    BISHOP    OF    WINCHESTER, 

(Dr.  Sumner.) 

eversley,  1 86 1. 
"  My  Lord, 

"  1  have  received  a  circular  from  the  venerable  the  arch- 
deacon, asking  me  to  sign  an  address  to  your  lordship  in  reference 
tj  the  '  Essays  and  Reviews,'  of  miserable  notoriety.  That  address 
1  declined  to  sign  upon  a  question  of  archidiaconal  jurisdiction. 
I  begged  that  the  letter  might  be  sent  to  the  archdeacon.  I 
hope  that  your  lordship  will  do  me  the  honor  of  perusing  it,  if  it  be 
sent  on  to  you.  But  in  justice  to  your  lordship,  and  to  myself,  I 
must  tell  you  what  I  thought  myself  bound  not  to  tell  the  arch- 
deacon in  his  official  capacity.  I  should  be  sorry  that  you  should 
think  diat  I  agreed  with  a  book  whose  pubhcation  I  have  deeply 
deplored,  and  have  more  reason  to  deplore  every  day. 

"  I  deplore  it  first,  for  itself;  second,  for  the  storm  which  I  saw 
it  would  raise.  For  itself.  With  the  exception  of  Dr.  Temple's 
essay,  in  which  I  can  see  nothing  heterodox,  be  his  theory  right  or 
wrong,  ar  the  essays  deny  but  do  not  affirm. 

"  'J'he  doubts  and  puzzles  which  they  raise  afresh  have  passed 
through  the  mind  of  every  thinking  man  in  the  last  twenty-five  years. 


3i8  Charles  Kings  ley. 

and  i:  pained  lue  much  to  see  them  re-stated — in  one  or  two  cases 
very  offensively — without  any  help  to  a  practical  solution.  1  con- 
fess to  having  thrust  the  book  away  in  disgust,  as  saying  once  again, 
very  weakly,  what  I  had  long  put  out  of  sight  and  mind,  in  the 
practical  realities  of  parish  work.  If  I  may  intrude  my  own  doings 
on  your  lordship,  when  my  new  curate  came  back  to  me  after  ordi- 
nation, having  heard  your  lordship's  allusion  to  these  '  Essays  an.'i 
Reviews,'  and  asked  me  whether  he  should  read  them,  I  tclJ  \\\\\\ 
*By  no  means.  They  will  disturb  your  mind  with  questions  whicii 
you  are  too  young  to  solve.  Stick  to  the  old  truths  and  the  old 
paths,  and  learn  their  divineness  by  sick-beds  and  in  every-day 
work,  and  do  not  darken  your  mind  with  intellectual  puzzles,  which 
may  breed  disbelief,  but  can  never  breed  vital  religion,  or  practical 
usefulness.'  As  for  my  own  opinions,  my  lord,  they  are  sufficiently 
known.  The  volumes  of  sermons  which  I  have  published  are,  I 
am  sure,  a  sufficient  guarantee  to  you  as  they  are  to  the  public, 
that  I  keep  to  the  orthodox  faith,  and  the  orthodox  formulae,  without 
tormenting  my  soul,  or  my  hearers,  with  fruitless  argument  on 
things  which  we  shall  never  know,  save  by  taking  our  Bible  in  hand 
like  little  children,  and  obeying  it.  Next,  I  deplore  the  publication 
of  these  Esba\  s  from  the  storm  which  I  saw  they  would  raise.  As 
a  fact,  they  are  being  sold  now  by  hundreds,  where  one  copy  would 
have  been  sold  ;  and  therefore  thousands  of  brains  are  being  put 
into  an  unwholesome  ferment,  instead  of  one  here  and  there.  The 
effect  at  the  Universities  will  be  very  bad  ;  for  young  men  are  only 
too  glad  to  fly  off  on  intellectual  disquisitions,  from  the  plain 
requirements  of  Christian  faith  and  duty,  and  therefore  I  could 
have  wished  that  the  book  had  been  passed  by  in  silence,  as  what 
it  is,  a  very  weak  and  inconsiderable  book.  But  it  is  too  late. 
That  my  curates,  and  my  parish,  shall  be  kept  clear,  if  I  can  do  it, 
of  all  fruitless  and  unwholesome  speculations,  and  taught  to  believe 
in  the  plain  doctrines  of  the  Prayer-book  and  Articles,  and  act  up 
to  them,  I  promise  you  with  all  my  heart." 

In  the  spring  a  set  of  "Tracts  for  Priests  and  People"  were 
brought  out  under  the  superintendence  of  Mr.  Maurice.  Mr. 
Kingsley  was  asked  to  write,  but  his  tune  was  absorbed  with  parish 
work  and  Cambridge  lectures. 

The  American  war,  which  was  occupying  general  attention, 
decided  the  Professor  to  take  the  History  of  America  as  the  sub- 
ject of  his  lectures  for  1862. 

The  correspondence  of  the  year,  of  which  little  has  been  recov- 
ered, closes  with  a  letter  to  Sir  Charles  Bunbury,  wiitten  on  his 
return  to  Evcrsley,  in  that  time  of  general  mourning  in  which  aU 
England  sliared. 


The  American   Question.  319 

EVERSLEY,  December  31,  1861. 

"...  As  for  the  American  question,  on  which  you  do  nie 
the  honor  to  ask  my  opinion,  I  have  thought  of  nothing  else  for 
some  lime  ;  for  I  cannot  see  how  I  can  be  a  Professor  of  past 
Modern  History  without  the  most  careful  study  of  the  history  which 
is  enacting  itself  around  me.  But  I  can  come  to  no  conclusion 
save  that  to  which  all  England  seems  to  have  come — that  the  wai 
will  be  a  gain  to  us.  So  strongly  do  I  feel  the  importance  of  this 
crisis,  that  I  mean  to  give  as  my  public  lectures,  next  October 
lerni,  the  History  of  the  American  States  ;  and  most  thankful  to  you 
should  J  be,  if  you  could  recommend  me  any  books  throwing  light 
on  it,  particularly  on  the  little  known  period  (strange  to  say),  from 
18 1 5  to  the  present  time. 

"  As  for  the  death  of  the  Prince  Consort,  I  can  say  nothing. 
Words  fail  me  utterly.  What  little  I  could  say,  I  put  into  a  sermon 
for  my  own  parishioners,  which   I   will  send  you  if  you  will  allow 

me 1  need  not  say  how  we  regretted  not  being  able 

to  accept  your  kind  invitation.  But  the  heavy  work  of  last  term, 
and  the  frightful  catastrophe  [Prince  Consort's  deathj  witli  which 
it  ended,  sent  us  all  home  to  rest,  if  rest  is  possible,  when,  on 
coming  home,  one  finds  fresh  arrears  of  work  waiting  for  one, 
which  ought  to  have  been  finished  oft'  months  since.  The  feel- 
ing of  being  always  behind  hand,  do  what  one  will,  is  second  only 
in  torment  to  that  of  debt. 

"  I  long  to  find  myself  once  again  talking  over  with  you  '  the 
stone?  which  tell  no  lies.'  " 

The  opening  of  1S62  found  him  once  more  settled  at  Eversley, 
and  enjoying  the  return  to  parish  work  after  the  heavy  duties 
and  responsibilities  of  such  a  year  at  Cambridge  as  coirid  never 
come  again. 

His  mind  was  particularly  vigorous  this  year,  and  the  refresh- 
ment of  visits  with  his  wife  to  the  Grange  in  the  winter,  and  to 
Scotland  in  the  summer,  giving  him  change  of  thought  and  scene, 
prepared  him  for  returning  to  his  professorial  work  in  the 
autumn,  and  to  his  controversy  on  the  Cotton  Famine  with  Lan 
cashire  mill-owners  and  millionaires. 

TO   CAPTAIN   ALSTON,    R.N. 

Eversley,  March  20,  1862. 

"As  for  rjie  Workmen's  Club,  Mrs.  Kingsley  has  sent  you  a  list 
cf  books  which  sne  recommends.  The  best  periodical  for  them  ii 
certainly  Norman  McLeod's  '  Good  Words,'  which  is  quite  adnira 
ble,  and  has  nc  w  a  very  large  circulation — 70,000,  I  believe.     J 


320  Charles  Kittgsley. 

do  not  think  that  I  would  give  them  Carlyle  yet.  If  I  di  i,  it  r^duW 
be  'Past  and  Present.'  And  yet,  things  have  so  mended  since  il 
was  written  that  that  would  be  unfair.  The  'French  Revolution' 
is  the  book,  if  they  would  only  understand  it. 

"  I  am  not  the  man  to  give  you  any  practical  suggestions  as  to 
the  working  of  such  a  club.  But  if  when  you  come  to  London,  yon 
choose  call  on  my  dear  friend  Tom  Hughes  (Tom  Brown),  he  would 
give  you  many  admirable  hints  learnt  from  experience. 

"  I  am  truly  thankful  to  hear  that  I  have  helped  to  make  a 
churchman  of  you.  The  longer  I  live,  the  more  I  find  the  Church 
of  England  the  most  rational,  liberal,  and  practical  form  which 
Christianity  has  yet  assumed ;  and  dread  as  much  seeing  it  assimi- 
lated to  dissent,  as  to  Popery.  Strange  to  say,  Thomas  Carlyle 
now  says  that  the  Church  of  England  is  the  most  rational  thing  he 
sees  now  going,  and  that  it  is  the  duty  of  every  wise  man  to  support 
it  to  the  uttermost." 

Sitting  at  breakfast  at  the  rectory  one  spring  morning  this  year, 
the  father  was  reminded  of  an  old  promise,  "  Rose,  Maurice,  and 
Mary  have  got  their  book,  and  baby  must  have  his."  He  made 
no  answer,  but  got  up  at  once  and  went  into  his  study,  locking  the 
door.  In  half  an  hour  he  returned  with  the  story  of  little  Tom. 
This  was  the  first  chapter  of"  The  Water-babies,"  written  off  without 
a  correction.  The  rest  of  the  book,  which  appeared  monthly  in 
"Macmillan's  Magazine,"  was  composed  with  the  same  quickness 
and  ease  as  the  first  chapter — if  indeed  what  was  so  purely  an  inspi- 
ration could  be  called  composing,  for  the  whole  thing  seemed  to 
tiow  naturally  out  of  his  brain  and  heart,  lightening  both  of  a 
burden  without  exhausting  either ;  and  the  copy  went  up  to  the 
printer's  with  scarcely  a  flaw.  He  was  quite  unprepared  for  the 
sensation  it  would  make. 

Nothing  helped  the  books  and  sermons  more  than  the  silence 
and  solitude  of  a  few  days'  fishing.  The  Water-babies,  especially, 
have  the  freshness  and  fragrance  of  the  sea  breeze  and  the  river- 
side in  almost  every  page. 

In  the  summer  the  Duke  of  Devonshire  was  installed  at  Cam 
bridge  as  Chancellor  of  the  University,  of  which  he  had  been  so 
distinguished  a  member,  taking  the  place  of  the  lamented  Prince 
Consort;  and  the  Professor  of  Modern  History,  as  in  duty  bound, 
wrote  an  installation  ode,  which,  being  set  to  music  by  Sir  Williair 
Sterndale  Bennett,  gave  him  the  acquairtance  and  friendship  of 
one  of  the  first  English  musicians. 


Catching  Salmon.  321 

In  August,  with  his  wife  and  his  eldest  boy  Maurice,  he  went  tu 
Scotland  for  a  month's  holiday,  whence  he  writes 

TO    HIS    MOTHER. 

MuRTHLEY  Castle,  August,  1862. 

"  Here  we  are  in  this  delicious  place,  full  of  beautiful  walks  and 
plantations — with  Birnani  Wood  opposite  my  window  as  I  write — 
only  all  the  wood  having  gone  to  Dunsinane  in  Macbeth's  time, 
(he  hill  alone  is  left.     ....     We  had  reels  last  night,  Lord 

John  Manners  and  Sir  Hugh  Cairns  both  dancing All 

that  is  said  of  the  grandeur  of  the  Tay  1  quite  agree  in.  I  never 
saw  such  a  river,  though  there  are  very  few  salmon  up.  I  got  into 
one  huge  fish  yesterday ;  but  he  shook  his  head  and  shook  out  the 
hook  very  soon.  Maurice  caught  a  good  sea  trout  of  2%  lbs.,  which 
delighted  him.  Monday  we  start  for  Inveraray,  via  Balloch,  Loch 
Lomond,  and  Tarbet." 

Inveraray  Castle,  Augiist  21. 

"  The  loveliest  spot  I  ever  saw — large  lawns  and  enormous  tim- 
ber  on  the  shores  of  a  salt-water  loch,  with  moor  and  mountain 
before  and  behind.  I  gat  myself  up  this  morning  at  four  for  sal- 
mon, yesterday  I  could  kill  none  ;  water  too  low.  To-day  the  first 
cast  I  hooked  a  ten  pounder,  and  the  hook  broke  !  The  river  is 
swarming  ;  they  are  flopping  and  smacking  about  the  water  every- 
where ;  but  ch,  dear  !  why  did  Heaven  make  midges  ?  " 

The  visit  to  Inveraray  was  one  of  the  bright  memories  and  green 
spots  of  his  life,  always  looked  back  upon  by  himself  and  those  who 
were  with  him  with  gratitude,  combining  as  it  did  not  only  beauti- 
ful scenery,  but  intellectual,  scientific,  and  spiritual  communings 
ow  the  highest,  holiest  themes.  Such  holidays  were  few  and  far  be- 
tween in  his  life  of  labor,  and  when  they  came  he  could  give  him- 
self up  to  them,  "  thanks,"  as  he  would  say, 

"to  my  blessed  habit  of  intensity,  which  has  been  my  greatest  help 
in  life.  I  go  at  what  I  am  about  as  if  there  was  nothing  else  in  the 
world  for  the  time  being.  That's  the  secret  of  all  hard-working 
men  ;  but  most  of  them  can't  carry  it  into  their  amusements. 
Luckily  for  me,  I  can  stop  from  all  work,  at  short  notice,  and  turn 
head  over  heels  in  the  sight  of  all  creation  for  a  spell." 

The  British  Association  met  at  Cambridge  on  the  ist  October. 
It  was  the  first  he  had  ever  attended.  The  Zoological  and  Geo. 
.ogicai  sections  were  those  which  naturally  attracted  him,  and  th< 

31 


322  Charles  Khigsley. 

acquaintances  he  made,  the  disthiguished  men  he  now  met,  (among 
them,  the  lamented  Beete  Jukes,  and  Lucas  Barrett,  who  was 
drowned  in  the  survey  of  the  Jamaica  coral  reefs  the  next  vear,) 
made  this  an  era  in  his  life,  and  gave  a  fresh  impetus  to  his  scicn 
tific  studies.  While  attending  Section  D,  he  was  present  at  the 
famous  tournament  between  Professor  Owen  and  Professor  Hux- 
ley on  the  Hippocampus  question,  which^led  to  his  writing  a  little 
squib  for  circulation  among  his  friends.  As  it  will  be  new  to  many 
it  is  given  at  length. 

SPEECH    OF    LORD    DUNDREARY    IN    SECTION    D,  ON    FRIDAY    LAST, 
ON   THE    GREAT    HIPPOCAMPUS    QUESTION, 

Cambridge,  October,  1861. 

"Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen,  I  mean  ladies  and  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, I  am  sure  that  all  ladies  and  gentlemen  will  see  the  matter 
just  as  I  do  ;  and  I  am  sure  we're  all  very  much  obliged  to  these 
scientific  gentlemen  for  quarrelling — no — I  don't  mean  that,  that 
wouldn't  be  charitable,  and  it's  a  sin  to  steal  a  pin  :  but  I  mean 
for  letting  us  hear  them  quarrel,  and  so  eloquently,  too  ;  though, 
of  course,  we  don't  understand  what  is  the  matter,  and  which  is  in 
the  right ;  but  of  course  we  were  very  much  delighted,  and,  I  may 
say,  quite  interested,  to  find  that  we  had  all  hippopotamuses  in 
our  brains.  Of  course  they're  right,  you  know,  because  seeing' s 
believing. 

"  Certainly,  I  never  felt  one  in  mine  ;  but  perhaps  it's  dead,  and 
so  didn't  stir,  and  then  of  course,  it  don't  count,  you  know.  A  dead 
dog  is  as  good  as  a  live  lion.  Stop — no.  A  live  lion  is  as  good 
as  a  dead  dog — no,  that  won't  do  again.  There's  a  mistake  some- 
where. What  was  I  saying?  Oh,  hippopotamuses.  Well,  I  say, 
perhaps  mine's  dead.  They  say  hippopotamuses  feed  on  water. 
No,  1  don't  think  that,  because  teetotallers  feed  on  water,  and  the) 
are  always  lean  ;  and  the  hippo's  fat,  at  least  in  the  Zoo.  Live  in 
water,  it  must  be  ;  and  there's  none  in  my  brain.  There  was  when 
I  was  a  baby,  my  aunt  says  ;  but  they  tapped  me  ;  so  I  supi^ose 
the  nippopotamus  died  of  drought.  No — stop.  It  wasn't  a  iiij)- 
po[jotamus  after  all,  it  was  hip — hip — not  hip,  hip,  hurrah,  you 
know,  that  comes  after  dinner,  and  the  section  hasn't  dined,  at 
least  since  last  night,  and  the  Cambridge  wine  is  very  good,  I  A'ill 
say  that.  No.  1  recc  llect  now.  Hippocampus  it  was.  Hippo- 
campu.s,  a  sea-horse  ;  I  learnt  that  at  Eton  ;  hippos,  sea,  and  cam- 
pus^ a  horse — no— campus  a  sea,  and  hippos,  a  horse,  that's  right. 
Only  campus  ain't  a  sea,  it's  a  field,  I  know  that;  Campus  Mai  tins 
— I  was  swished  for  that  at  Eton — ought  to  be  again,  I  believe,  i/ 
every  dog  had  his  day.      Hut  at  leait  it's  a  sea-horse,  I  know  that 


Lord  Dundreary.  323 

because  I  saw  one  alive  at  Malta  with  the  regiment,  and  it  rang  a 
bell.  No  ;  u  was  a  canary  that  rang  a  bell ;  but  this  had  a  tail 
like  a  monkey,  and  made  a  noise  like  a  bell.  I  dare  say  yo.i  won'i 
believe  me;  but  'pon  honor  I'm  speaking  truth — noblesse  oblige, 
you  know  ;  and  it  hadn't  been  taught  at  all,  and  perliaps  if  it  had  it 
wouldn't  have  learnt  :  but  it  did,  and  it  was  in  a  monkey's  tail.  No, 
stop,  it  must  have  been  in  its  head,  because  it  was  in  its  brain  ;  and 
every  one  has  brains  in  his  head,  unless  he's  a  skeleton  ;  and  it 
curled  its  tail  round  things  litve  a  monkey,  that  I  know,  for  I  saw  it 
with  my  own  eyes.  .  That  was  Professor  Rolleston's  theory,  you 
know.  It  was  Professor  Huxley  said  it  was  in  his  tail — not  Mr. 
Huxle3''s,  of  course,  but  the  ape's:  only  apes  have  no  tails,  so  1 
don't  quite  see  that.  And  then  the  other  gentleman  who  got  up 
last,  Mr.  Flower,  you  know,  he  said  that  it  was  all  over  the  ape, 
everywhere.  All  over  hippocampuses,  from  head  to  foot,  poor 
beast,  like  a  dog  all  over  ticks  !  I  wonder  why  they  don't  rub  blue- 
stone  into  the  back  of  its  neck,  as  one  does  to  a  pointer.  Well, 
then.  Where  was  I?  Oh!  and  Professor  Owen  said  it  wasn't  in 
apes  at  all  :  but  only  in  the  order  bimana,  that's  you  and  me. 
Well,  he  knows  best.  And  they  all  know  best  too,  for  they  are 
monstrous  clever  fellows.  So  one  must  be  right,  and  all  the  rest 
wrong,  or  else  one  of  them  wrong,  and  all  the  rest  right — you  see 
that  P  I  wonder  why  they  don't  toss  up  about  it.  If  they  took  a 
half-crown  now,  or  a  shilling,  or  even  a  fourpenny-piece  would  do, 
if  they  magnified  it,  and  tost  heads  and  tails,  or  Newmarket,  if  the> 
wanted  to  be  quite  sure,  why  then  there  couldn't  be  any  dispute 
among  gentlemen  after  that,  of  course.  Well,  then,  about  men 
being  apes,  I  say,  why  shouldn't  it  be  the  other  way,  and  the  apes 
be  men?  do  you  see?  Because  then  they  might  have  as  many 
hippocampuses  in  their  brains  as  they  liked,  or  hippopotamuses 
either,  indeed.  1  should  he  glad  indeed  if  it  was  so,  if  it  was  only 
for  my  aunt's  sake  ;  for  she  says  that  her  clergyman  says,  that  if 
anybody  ever  finds  a  hippopotannis  in  a  monkey's  head,  nothing 
will  save  her  great,  great,  great — I  can't  say  how  great,  you  see — 
it's  awful  to  think  of — quite  enormous  grandfather  from  having  been 
&  monkey  too  ;  and  then  what  is  to  become  of  her  precious  soul  ? 
So,  for  my  aunt's  sake,  I  should  be  very  glad  if  it  could  be  settled 
that  way,  really  ;  and  I  am  sure  the  scientific  gentlemen  will  take 
it  into  consideration,  because  they  are  gentlemen,  as  every  one 
knows,  and  would  not  hurt  a  lady's  feelings.  The  man  who  would 
strike  a  woman,  you  know — everybody  knows  that,  it's  in  Shake- 
speare. And  besides,  the  niggers  say  that  monkeys  are  men,  only 
the}  won't  work  for  fear  of  being  made  to  talk  ;  no,  won't  talk  for 
fear  of  be'ng  made  to  work  ;  that's  it  (right  for  once,  as  I  live  !) 
and  put  their  hands  over  their  eyes  at  night  for  fear  of  seeing  th" 
old  gentleman — and  I'm  sure  that's  just  like  a  reasonable  creature, 
1  used  to  when  J  was  a  little  boy  ;  and  you  see  the   niggers  have 


324  Charles  Kings  ley. 

lived  among  them  for  thousands  of  years,  and  are  monstrot.'S  lik« 
them,  too,  d'ye  see,  and  so  they  must  know  best ;  and  then  il 
would  be  all  right. 

"Well,  then,  about  a  gulf.  Professor  Huxley  says  there  s  a  gulf 
between  a  man  and  an  ape.  I'm  sure  I'm  glad  of  it,  especially  if 
the  ape  bit;  and  Professor  Owen  says  there  ain't.  What?  am  1 
wrong,  eh .?  Of  course.  Yes — beg  a  thousand  jiardons,  really  now 
Of  course — Professor  Owen  says  there  is,  and  Professor  Huxle\ 
says  there  ain't.  Well,  a  fellow  can't  recollect  everything.  But  1 
say,  if  there's  a  gulf,  the  ape  might  get  over  it  and  bite  one  aftei 
all.  I  know  Quintus  Curtius  jumped  over  a  gulf  at  Eton — that  is, 
certainly,  he  jumped  in:  but  that  was  his  fault,  you  see:  if  he'd 
put  in  more  powder  he  might  have  cleared  it,  and  then  there  would 
have  been  no  gulf  between  him  and  an  ape.  But  that  don't  matter 
so  much,  because  Professor  Huxley  said  the  gulf  was  bridged  over 
by  a  structure.  Now  I  am  sure  I  don't  wish  to  be  personal,  espe- 
cially after  the  very  handsome  way  in  which  Professor  Huxley  has 
drunk  all  our  healths.  Stop — no.  It's  we  that  ought  to  drink  his 
health,  I'm  sure,  Highland  honors  and  all  ;  but  at  the  same  time  I 
should  have  been  obliged  to  him  if  he'd  told  us  a  little  more  about 
this  structure,  especially  considering  what  nasty  mischievous  things 
apes  are.  Tore  one  of  my  coat  tails  off  at  the  Zoological  the  other 
day.  He  ought — no,  I  don't  say  that,  because  it  would  seem  like 
dictation,  I  don't  like  that ;  never  could  do  it  at  school — wrote  it 
down  all  wrong — got  swished — hate  dictation : — but  I  might  humbly 
express  that  Professor  Huxley  might  have  told  us  a  little,  you  see, 
about  that  structure.  Was  it  wood?  Was  it  iron?  Was  it  silver 
and  gold,  like  London  Bridge  when  Lady  Lee  danced  over  it,  be- 
fore it  was  washed  away  by  a  man  with  a  pipe  in  his  mouth  ?  No, 
stop,  I  say — That  can't  be.  A  man  with  a  pipe  in  his  mouth  wash 
away  a  biidge?  Why  a  fellow  can't  work  hard  with  a  pipe  in  his 
mouth — everybody  knows  that — much  less  wash  away  a  whole 
briiige.  No,  it's  quite  absurd — quite.  Only  I  say,  I  should  like 
to  know  something  about  this  structure,  if  it  was  only  to  quiet  my 
aunt.  And  then,  if  Professor  Huxley  can  see  the  structure,  why 
can't  Professor  Owen  ?  It  can't  be  invisible,  you  know,  unless  it 
R-aj  paint>jd  invisible  green,  like  Ben  Hall's  new  bridge  at  Chelsea: 
only  you  can  see  that  of  course,  for  you  have  to  pay  now  when 
yo\i  go  over,  so  I  suppose  the  green  ain't  the  right  color.  But 
that's  another  reason  why  I  want  them  to  toss  up — toss  up,  you 
see,  whether  they  saw  it  ir  not,  or  which  of  them  should  see  it,  or 
something  of  that  kind,  I'm  sure  that's  the  only  way  to  settle  ;  and 
— oh,  by-the-bye,  as  I  said  before — only  I  didn't,  but  I  ought  to 
have — if  either  of  the  gentlemen  havn't  half-a-crown  about  them; 
why  a  two-shilling-piece  might  do ,  though  I  never  carry  then)  my- 
self, for  fear  of  giving  one  to  a  keeper;  and  then  he  sets  you  dowr 
for  a  ;j':rew,  you  know.     Because,  you  see,  I  see,  I  don't  quite  sef 


A   New    Volume  of  Sermons.  325 

and  ro  offence  to  lionorable  members — learned  and  eloquent 
gentlemen,  I  mean  ;  and  though  I  don't  wish  to  dictate,  1  don'l 
([uite  tliink  ladies  and  gentlemen  quite  see  either.     You  see  that?  " 

rrhe  noble  lord,  who  had  expressed  so  acu.ately  the  general 
S(  use  of  the  meeting,  sat  down  amid  loud  applause.) 

The  cotton  famine  in  the  North,  which  occurred  now,  roused 
ni.'vny  thoughts  and  feelings  in  his  mind  and  heart,  and  led  to  a 
correspondence  in  the  "Times"  and  elsewhere. 

A  new  volume  of  serpions,  "  Town  and  Country  Sermons,"  had 
recently  been  published.  They  were  dedicated  to  his  "  most  kind 
and  faithful  friend,"  the  Dean  of  Windsor,*  and  contained  several 
preached  at  Windsor  and  at  Whitehall,  with  some  of  the  deepest 
and  mc»st  characteristic  of  his  Eversley  sermons — particularly  "The 
Rock  of  Ages,"  "  The  Wrath  of  Love,"  "  Pardon  and  Peace,"  and 
one  most  important  one  on  the  Athanasian  Creed,  called  "  Th« 
Knowledge  of  God." 

•The  Kca.  ar.J  Very  R.ev.  Gerald  Wdlesley. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

1863. 
Aged  44. 

FtiJow  of  the  Geological  Society — Work  at  Cambridge — Prince  Jf  Wales's  VV>fl 
ding — Wellington  College  Chapel  and  Museum — Letter  from  Dr.  Benson  — 
Lecture  at  Wellington — Letters  to  Sir  Charles  Lyell,  Prof.  Hu.xley,  Charlci 
Darwin,  James  A.  Froude,  &c. — Whitchurch  Still-life — Toads  in  Holes— 
D.C.L.  Degree  at  Oxford — Bishop  Colenso — Sermons  on  the  Pentateuch-- 
The  Water-babies — Failing  Health. 

Trofessor  Kingsi,ey  had  this  year  the  honor  of  adding  three 
letters  to  his  name  by  being  made  a  Fellow  of  the  Geological 
Society.  He  was  proposed  by  his  kind  friend  Sif  Charles  Bun- 
bury,  and  seconded  by  Sir  Charles  Lyell.  "To  belong  to  the 
Geological  Society,"  he  says  in  a  letter  to  the  former,  "has  long 
been  an  ambition  of  mine,  but  I  feel  how  little  I  know,  and  how 
unworthy  I  am  to  mix  with  the  really  great  men  who  belong  to  it. 
So  strongly  do  I  feel  this,  that  if  you  told  me  plainly  that  1  had  no 
right  to  expect  such  an  honor,  I  should  placidly  acquiesce  in  what 
I  already  feel  to  be  true."  The  F.G.S.  came  as  a  counter- 
balance to  his  rejection  at  Oxford  for  the  distinction  of  D.C.L., 
which  his  friends  there  proposed  to  confer  on  him. 

The  year  was  spent  almost  entirely  at  Eversley,  for  he  found 
the  salary  of  his  Professorship  did  not  admit  of  his  keeping  two 
houses  and  of  moving  his  family  backwards  and  forwards  to 
Cambridge.  He  was  therefore  forced  to  part  with  his  Cambridge 
house,  and  to  go  up  twice  a  year  merely,  for  the  time  required  foi 
his  lectures  (twelve  to  sixteen  in  number),  and  again  at  the  exami- 
nation  of  his  class  for  degrees.  He  deeply  regretted  this  necessity 
as  it  prevented  his  knowing  the  men  in  his  class  personally,  which 
he  had  made  a  point  of  doing  during  the  first  two  years  of  his  resi- 
dence, when  they  came  to  his  house,  and  many  charming  evenings 
were  spent  in  easy  intercourse  between  the  Professor  and  his  pupils, 
A'hc  met  them  on  equal  terms.  From  the  first  he  made  it  one  of 
his   most  important  duties  to  do   what  he  could  to  brid^^e  oi'^r  a 


The  Royal   Wedding.  327 

gulf  which  in  his  own  day  had  been  a  very  wide  one  between  Dons 
and  Students.  That  he  had  succeeded  in  doing  this  was  pro  red 
by  members  of  his  class,  writing  to  consult  him  after  they  left 
Cambridge  on  their  studies,  their  professions,  and  their  religious 
difficulties,  in  a  way  that  showed  their  perfect  confidence  in  his 
sympathy  ;  and  had  circumstances  allowed  of  his  residing  at  Cam 
bri.lge,  his  personal  influence  would  have  been  still  greater. 
VVe  now  return  to  his  correspondence. 

TO    REV.    E.     PITCAIRN    CAMPBELL. 

EVERSLEY,  March  12,  1 863. 

"We  are  just  from  the  Royal  ^Vedding — at  least  so  I  believe. 
W'e  had  (so  1  seem  to  remember)  excellent  places.  Mrs.  Kingsley 
in  the  temporary  gallery  in  the  choir.  I  in  the  household  gallery, 
both  within  15  yards  of  what,  I  am  inclined  to  think,  was  really  the 
Prince  and  Princess.  But  1  can't  swear  to  it.  I  am  not  at  all  sure 
that  1  did  not  fall  asleep  in  the  dear  old  chapel,  with  the  banners 
and  stalls  fresh  in  my  mind,  and  dream  and  dream  of  Edward  the 
Fourth's  time.  At  least,  I  saw  live  Knights  of  the  Garter  (myths 
to  me  till  then).  I  saw  real  Princesses  with  diamond  crowns,  and 
trains,  and  fairies  holding  them  up.  1  saw — what  did  I  not  see  ? 
And  only  began  to  believe  my  eyes,  when  1  met  at  the  dejeuner 
certain  of  the  knights  whom  I  knew,  clothed  and  in  their  right 
njjiid,  like  other  folk  ;  and  of  the  damsels  and  fairies  many,  who,  1 
believe,  were  also  flesh  and  blood,  for  they  talked  and  ate  with  me, 
and  vanished  not  away. 

*'  But  seriously,  one  real  thing  I  did  see,  and  felt  too — the  serious 
grace  and  reverent  dignity  of  my  dear  young  Master,  whose  manner 
was  perfect.     And  one  other  real  thing — the  Queen's  sad  face. 

I  cannot  tell  you  how  auspicious  I  consider  this 

event,  or  how  happy  it  has  made  the  little  knot  of  us,  the  Prince's 
household,*  who  love  him  because  we  know  him.  I  hear  nothing 
but  golden  reports  of  the  Princess  from  those  who  have  known  her 
long.     I  look  forward  to  some  opportunity  of  judging  for  myself." 

His  time  this  year  was  divided  between  his  parish  work  and  the 
lUudy  of  science,  and  in  corresponding  with  scientific  men.  Mr. 
Darwin's  "  Origin  of  Species"  and  his  book  on  the  "  Fertilization 
of  Orchids,"  had  opened  a  new  world  to  him,  and  made  all  that  he 
s:ivv  around  him,  if  possible,  even  more  full  of  divine  significance 
than  before.  WelUngton  College  was  a  continual  interest  to  him 
lie  lectured  to  the  boys,  and  helped  them  to  start  a  Museutxi.     He 

*  Mr.  Kingsley  had  recently  been  made  one  cfth'  Prince's  chip! >iius. 


328  Charles  Kings  ley. 

felt  bound  to  do  all  he  could  for  Wellington  College,  not  oiily  be 
cause  his  own  son  was  there,  and  from  his  warm  friendship  with  Dr. 
Benson,  then  head-master ;  but  because  he  looked  upon  the  place 
as  a  nif^morial  of  the  great  Prince  under  whose  fostering  care  it  had 
risen  into  importance,  as  well  as  of  the  great  Duke  whose  name  /f 
bore.  The  boys  were  continually  at  the  Rectory,  and  Mr.  Kingsley 
was  always  present  at  their  great  days,  whether  for  the  speeches  01 
their  athletic  sports. 

Mr.  Ku^gsley's  Lecture  on  Natural  History  may  well  be  prefaced 
by  a  letter  from  Dr.  Benson,  characteristic  alike  of  the  writer  and 
his  subject. 

The  Chancery,  Linxoln,  Sunday,  July  11,  1875. 

"My  dear  Mrs.  Kingsley, 

'*.  .  .  .  There  was  a  bold  sketch  of  Mr.  Kingsley  in  the 
Spectator  in  his  squire-like  aspect,  and  I  think  it  was  true.  But  ] 
know  that  an  equally  true  sketch  might  be  made  of  him  as  a  parish 
priest,  who  would  have  delighted  George  Herbert.  The  gentle, 
warm  frankness  with  which  he  talked  on  a  summer  Sunday  among 
•:he  grassy  and  flowery  graves. — The  happy  peace  in  which  he 
1  alked,  chatting,  over  to  Bramshill  chapel-school,  and,  after  reading 
'he  evening  service,  preached  in  his  surplice  with  a  chair-back  for 
'•is  pulpit,  on  the  deeps  of  the  Athanasian  Creed  ;  and,  after  thank- 
ing God  for  words  that  brought  such  truths  so  near,  bade  the  villagers 
mark  that  the  very  Creed  which  laid  such  stress  on  faith,  told  them 
that  '  they  who  did  good  would  go  into  everlasting  life.' — His  strid- 
ing across  the  ploughed  field  to  ask  a  young  ploughman  in  the  dis- 
tance why  he  had  not  been  at  church  on  Sunday,  and  ending  his 
talk  with  '  Now,  you  know,  John,  your  wife  don't  want  you  lounging 
in  bed  half  a  Sunday  morning.  You  get  up  and  come  to  church, 
and  let  her  get  your  Sunday  dinner  and  make  the  house  tidy,  and 
then  \ou  mind  your  child  in  the  afternoon  while  she  comes  to 
church.'  These,  and  many  other  scenes,  are  brightly  before  me, 
'  His  never  remitted  visits  to  sick  and  helpless,  his  knowledge  of 
their  every  malady,  and  every  change  of  their  hopes  and  fears ;  the 
sternness  and  the  gentleness  which  lie  alternated  so  easily  wilh 
foolish  people  ;  the  great  respectfulness  of  his  tone  to  old  folks, 
made  the  rectory  and  church  at  Eversley  the  centre  of  the  life  of 
the  men  as  well  as  their  children  and  wives.  Gipsies  on  Harttord- 
bridge  flats  have  told  me  they  considered  Eversley  their  parish 
church  wherever  they  went,  and  for  his  own  parishioners,  '  every 
man  jack  of  them,'  as  he  said,  was  a  steady  rhurch-goer.  But  ii 
was  no  wonder,  for  I  never  heard  sermons  with  which  more  pains 
had  been  taken  than  those  which  he  made  for  his  poor  peoj  le. 
There  was  so  much,  such  deep  teaching,  conveyed  in  words  thai 


Lectures  to  Boys.  329 

were  so  plain  One  on  the  conversion  of  St.  Paul,  and  one  on  the 
Church,  I  shall  never  forget.  The  awe  and  reverence  of  his  mannei 
of  celebrating  the  service  was  striking  to  any  one  .vho  knew  only 
his  novels.  Strangers  several  times  asked  me,  w  10  saw  him  at 
service  in  our  own  school-chapel,  who  it  was  who  was  so  rapt  in 
manner,  who  bowed  so  low  at  the  Gloria  and  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ ;  and  so  I  too  was  surprised  when  he  asked  me,  before 
preaching  in  his  church,  to  use  only  the  Invocation  of  the  Trinity; 
and  when  I  observed  that  he  celebrated  the  communion  in  the  east- 
waid  position.  This  he  loyally  gave  up  on  the  Purchas  judgment, 
♦because  I  mind  the  law,'  but  told  me  with  what  regret  he  discon- 
tinued what  from  his  ordination  he  had  always  done,  believing  it 
the  simple  direction  of  the  Prayer  Book. 

•*An  amusing  incident  happened  once,  which,  I  daresay,  he 
never  heard  of.  A  sub -editor,  of  a  famous  religious  paper,  once 
attended  a  chapel  service  at  WeUington,  when  Mr.  Kingsley 
preached,  and  then  withdrew  his  son's  name  from  our  list,  and  pre- 
pared a  leading  article  upon  a  supposed  head-master,  whose  doc- 
trine and  manner  were  so  '  high.' 

"What  always  struck  me  in  him  was  the  care  and  pains  which 
he  took  with  all  that  he  undertook.  Nothing  was  hurried,  or 
slurredf  or  dashing.  'I  can  tell  you,  I've  spared  no  trouble  upon 
it,'  he  said,  when  we  thanked  him  for  the  beautiful  sermon  on 
'  Wisdom  and  her  seven  pillars,'  which  he  made  for  one  of  our 
days.* 

"  In  the  readiest  and  yet  most  modest  way  he  helped  us  wonder- 
fully. His  presence  looking  on,  helped  our  games  into  shape  when 
we  began  with  fifty  raw  little  boys,  and  our  football  exploits,  twelve 
years  after,  were  as  dear  to  him  as  to  his  son;  ' the  Kingsley ' 
steeple-chase  was  the  event  of  the  year.  But  in  far  higher  ways 
he  helped  us.  He  wrote  an  admirable  paper  for  us,  which  was 
widely  circulated,  on  School  Museums ;  he  prevailed  on  the  Royal 
College  of  Surgeons,  on  Lady  Franklin,  and  other  friends,  to 
present  the  boys  with  many  exquisite  natural  history  specimens, 
and  started  all  our  collections. 

"  His  lectures  (of  which  I  trust  some  of  his  notes  exist)  on 
natural  history,  and  two  on  geology,  were  some  of  the  most  bril- 
liant things  1  ever  heard.  Facts  and  theories,  and  speculations, 
and  imaginations  of  what  had  been  and  might  be,  simply  riveted 
the  attentu  n  of  200  or  300  boys  for  an  hour  and  a  half  or  two 
hours,  and  many  good  proverbs  of  life  sparkled  amorg  these. 
Their  great  effect  was  that  they  roused  so  much  interest.  At  the 
same  time  liis  classification  of  facts  such  as  the  radiation  of  plants 
(Heather  for  instance)  from  geographical  centres,  gave  substanixAl 
grounds  for  the  work  which  he  encouraged.      '  Let  us  make  a  be- 

*  Published  in  "  Discipline  and  other  Sermons." 


330  Charles  Kings  ley. 

ginning  by  knowing  one  little  thing  well,  and  getting  reused  as  tc 
what  else  is  to  be  known.' 

"  Nothing  was  more  delightful  too,  to  our  boys,  than  the  way  in 
which  he  would  come  and  make  a  little  speech  at  the  end  of  other 
occasional  winter  lectures,  Mr.  Lowne's  or  Mr.  Henslow's,  or 
al)out  balloons,  or,  above  all,  when,  at  the  close  of  a  lecture 
of  Mr.  Barnes's,  he  harangued  us  in  pure  Dorset  dialect,  to  the  sur- 
prise and  delight  of  the  Dorsetshire  poet. 

"  In  our  many  happy  talks  we  scarcely  ever  agreed  in  our  esti- 
mate of  mediaeval  character  or  literature,  but  I  learnt  much  from 
hini.  When  even  St.  Bernard  was  not  appreciated  by  him,  it  is 
not  surprising  that  much  of  the  life  of  those  centuries  was  repul- 
sive, and  its  religious  practice  '  pure  Buddhism,'  as  he  used  to  say. 
At  the  same  time,  I  never  shall  forget  how  he  turned  over  on 
a  person  who  was  declaiming  against  '  idolatry.'  '  Let  me  tell  you, 
sir,'  (he  said  with  that  forcible  stammer),  '  that  if  you  had  had 
a  chance  you  would  have  done  the  same,  and  worse.  The  first 
idols  were  black  stones,  meteoric  stones.  And  if  you'd  been  a 
poor  naked  fellow,  scratching  up  the  ground  with  your  nails,  when  a 
great  lump  of  pyrites  had  suddenly  half  buried  itself  in  the  ground 
within  three  yards  of  you,  with  a  horrid  noise  and  smell,  don't  you 
tJiink  you'd  have  gone  down  on  your  knees  to  it,  and  begged  it  not 
to  do  it  again,  and  smoothed  it  and  oiled  it,  and  anything  else  ? ' 

"  Greek  life  and  feeling  was  dear  to  him  in  itself,  and  usually  he 
was  penetrated  with  thankfulness  that  it  formed  so  large  a  part  of 
education. 

"  '  From  that  and  from  the  Bible,  boys  learn  what  must  be  learnt 
among  the  grandest  moral  and  spiritual  reproofs  of  what  is  base. 
Nothing  so  fearful  as  to  leave  curiosity  unslaked  to  help  itself 
At  other  times  he  doubted.  Still,  if  I  measure  rightly,  he  doubtea 
only  when  he  was  so  possessed  with  the  forest  ardor,  that  he  said, 
'  All  politics,  all  discussions,  all  philosophies  of  Europe,  are  so  in- 
fmitely  little  in  comparison  with  those  trees  out  there  in  the  WesI 
Indies.  Don't  you  think  the  brain  is  a  fungoid  growth?  O  I  if  J 
could  only  find  an  artist  to  paint  a  tree  as  I  see  it !'  In  mention- 
ing last  this  keen  enjoyment  of  his  in  the  earth  as  it  is,  I  seem  to 
have  inverted  the  due  order  :  but  I  see  it  as  a  solid,  truthful  back- 
ground in  his  soul  of  all  the  tenderness  and  lovingness,  and  spiritual 
strength  in  which  he  walke/1  about  *  convinced,'  as  a  friend  once 
said  to  me  of  him,  '  that,  as  a  mar  and  as  a  priest,  he  had  got  the 
devil  imder,  and  that  it  was  his  bounden  duty  to  keep  him  there.* ' 

LECTURE    AT   WELLINGTON    COLLEGE. 
June  25,    1863. 

"Young  Gentlemen, 

*'  Vour  head-master.  Dr.  Benson,  has  done  me  the  honor  of 
Asking  me  to  say  a  Httle  to  you  to-night  about  the  Museum  nrliicb 


The  Art  of  Learnhig.  331 

is  m  contemplation,  connected  with  this  College,  and  how  'ax  you 
yourselves  can  help  it. 

"I  assure  you  1  do  so  gladly.  Anything  which  brings  ni''  ir 
contact-  with  the  boys  of  Wellington  College,  much  more  of  help- 
ing forward  their  improvement  in  the  slightest  degree,  I  shall 
always  look  upon  as  a  very  great  pleasure,  and  a  very  serious  duty. 

*'  Let  nie  tell  you,  then,  what  I  think  you  may  do  for  the 
Museum,  and  how  you  may  improve  yourselves  by  do.ng  it,  with 
out  interfering  with  your  regular  work.  Of  course,  that  must 
»iever  be  interfered  with.  You  are  sent  here  to  work.  All  uf  you 
here,  I  sui)pose,  depend  for  your  success  in  life  on  yoar  own  exer- 
tions. None  of  you  are  born  (luckily  for  you)  with  a  silver  spoon 
in  your  mouths,  to  eat  flapdoodle  at  other  people's  expense,  and 
live  in  luxury  and  idleness.  Work  you  must,  and  I  don't  doubt 
that  work  you  will,  and  let  nothing  interfere  with  your  work. 

"The  first  thing  for  a  boy  to  learn,  after  obedience  and  moral- 
ity, is  a  habit  of  observation.  A  habit  of  using  your  eyes.  It 
matters  little  what  you  use  them  on,  provided  you  do  use  them. 

*'  They  say  knowledge  is  power,  and  so  it  is.  But  only  the 
knowledge  which  you  get  by  observation.  Many  a  man  is  very 
learned  in  books,  and  has  read  for  years  and  years,  and  yet  he  is 
useless.  He  knows  about  all  sorts  of  things  but  he  can't  do  them. 
When  you  set  him  to  do  work,  he  makes  a  mess  of  it.  He  is  what 
is  called  a  pedant :  because  he  has  not  used  his  eyes  and  ears. 
He  has  lived  in  books.  He  knows  nothing  of  the  world  about 
him,  or  of  men  and  their  ways,  and  therefore  he  is  left  behind  in 
the  race  of  life  by  many  a  shrewd  fellow  who  is  not  half  as  book- 
learned  as  he  :  but  who  is  a  shrewd  fellow — who  keeps  his  eyes 
open — who  is  always  picking  up  new  facts,  and  turning  them  to 
some  particular  use. 

"  Now,  I  don't  mean  to  undervalue  book-learning.  No  man 
less.  All  ought  to  have  some  of  it,  and  the  time  which  you  spend 
here  on  it  is  not  a  whit  too  long  ;  but  the  great  use  of  a  public 
school  education  to  you,  is,  not  so  much  to  teach  you  things  as  to 
teach  you  how  to  learn.  To  give  you  the  noble  art  of  learning, 
which  you  can  use  for  yourselves  in  after-life  on  any  matter  tu 
which  you  choose  to  turn  your  mind.  And  \diat  does  the  art  of 
learning  consist  in  ?  First  and  foremost,  in  the  art  of  observing. 
That  is,  the  boy  who  uses  his  eyes  best  on  his  book,  and  observer 
the  words  and  letters  of  his  lesson  most  accurately  and  carefully, 
that  is  the  boy  who  learns  his  lesson  best,  I  presume. 

"  You  know,  as  well  as  I,  how  one  fellow  will  sit  staring  at  his 
book  for  an  hour  without  knowing  a  word  about  it,  while  another 
will  learn  the  thing  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and  why  ?  Because 
one  has  actually  not  seen  the  words.  He  has  been  thinking  ol 
something  else,  looking  out  of  the  window,  repeating  the  wor  Is  to 
himself  like  a  parrot      The   other  fellow   has  simply,   a>  we   say 


332  Charles  Kings  ley. 

'  looked  shaip.'  He  has  looked  at  the  lesson  wi:li  his  whole  minc^ 
seen  it,  and  seen  into  it,  and  therefore  knows  all  about  it. 

"  Therefore,  I  say,  that  everything  which  helps  a  boy's  powers 
of  observation  helps  his  power  of  learning  ;  and  I  know  from  ex- 
perience that  nothing  helps  that  so  much  as  the  study  of  the 
(vorld  a,bout  you,  and  especially  of  natural  history.  To  be  accus- 
tomed to  watch  for  curious  objects,  to  know  in  a  moment  when 
)uu  have  come  on  anything  new — which  is  observation.  To  be 
cpiick  at  seeing  when  things  are  like,  and  when  unlike — which  is 
classification.  All  that  must,  and  I  well  know  does,  help  to  make 
a  boy  shrewd,  earnest,  accurate,  ready  for  whatever  may  happen. 
When  we  were  little  and  good,  a  long  time  ago,  we  used  to  have 
a  jolly  old  book  called  '  Evenings  at  Home,'  in  which  was  a  great 
story  called  Eyes  and  No  Eyes,  and  that  story  was  of  more  use  to 
me  than  any  dozen  other  stories  I  ever  read. 

"A  regular  old-fashioned  formal  story  it  is,  but  a  right  good  one, 
and  thus  it  begins  : — - 

"  '  Well,  Robert,  where  have  you  been  walking  this  afternoon  ? ' 
said  Mr.  Andrews,  to  one  of  his  pupils,  at  the  close  of  a  holiday. 
Oh,  Robert  had  been  to  Broom  Heath,  and  round  to  Campmount, 
and  home  through  the  meadows.  But  it  was  very  dull,  he  hardly 
saw  a  single  person.  He  had  rather  by  half  have  gone  by  the 
turnpike  road. 

"  But  where  is  William  ? 

"  Oh,  William  started  with  him,  but  he  was  so  tedious,  always 
stopping  to  look  at  this  thing  and  that,  that  he  would  rather  walk 
alone,  and  so  went  on. 

"  Presently  in  comes  Master  William,  dressed  no  doubt  as  we 
wretched  boys  used  to  be  forty  years  ago,  frill  collar,  and  tight 
skeleton  monkey  jacket,  and  tight  trousers  buttoned  over  it,  and 
not  down  to  his  ankles — a  pair  of  low  shoes — which  always  came 
off  if  stept  into  heavy  ground — and  terribly  dirty  and  wet  he  is, 
but  he  never  had  such  a  pleasant  walk  in  his  life,  and  has  brought 
home  a  handkerchief  full  of  curiosities. 

"  He  has  got  a  piece  of  mistletoe,  and  wants  to  know  what  it  is, 
and  seen  a  woodpecker  and  a  wheat-ear,  and  got  strange  flowers 
off  the  heath,  and  hunted  a  peewit  because  he  thought  its  wing  was 
bioken,  till  of  course  it  led  him  into  a  bog  and  wet  he  got;  but  he 
did  not  mind,  for  in  the  bog  he  fell  in  with  an  old  man  cutting 
turf,  who  told  him  all  about  turf  cutting,  and  gjive  him  an  adder ; 
and  then  he  went  up  a  hill,  and  saw  a  grand  prospect,  and  wanted 
to  go  again  and  make  out  the  geography  of  the  county  by  Carey's 
old  county  map — which  was  oui  only  map  in  those  days  ;  ^nd  be- 
cause the  place  was  called  Campmount,  he  looked  foi  a  Roman 
camp  and  found  one  ;  and  then  he  went  to  the  ruin,  and  sa\f 
twenty  things  more,  and  so  on,  and  so  on,  till  he  had  brought  hoiac 
curiosities  enough  and  thoughts  enough  to  last  him  a  week. 


Eyes  and  No  Eyes,  333 

"Whereon  Mr.  Andrews,  who  seems  a  sensible  old  gentleman 
enough,  tells  him  all  about  his  curiosities ;  and  then  it  turns  out 
lliat  Master  William  has  been  over  exactly  the  same  ground  as 
Master  Robert,  who  saw  nothing  at  all. 

"  Whereon  says  Mr.  Andrews,  wisely  enough  in  his  solemn,  old- 
fashioned  way,  '  So  it  is.  One  man  walks  through  the  world  wivli 
his  eyes  open,  and  another  with  them  shut ;  and  upon  this  difterence 
depends  all  the  superiority  of  knowledge  which  one  acquires  ovei 
the  other.  1  have  known  sailors  who  have  been  in  all  the  quarters 
of  the  world,  and  could  tell  you  nothing  but  the  signs  of  the  tippling 
houses,  and  the  price  and  cpiality  of  the  liquor.  On  the  other  hand, 
Franklin  could  not  cross  the  Channel  without  making  observations 
useful  to  mankind.  While  many  a  vacant  thoughtless  person  is 
whirled  through  Europe  without  gaining  a  single  idea  worth  cross- 
ing the  street  for,  the  observing  eye  and  inquiring  mind  find  matter 
of  improvement  and  delight  in  every  ramble.  Do  you  then,  William, 
continue  to  make  use  of  your  eyes  ;  and  you,  Robert,  learn  that 
eves  were  given  you  to  use.' 

"And  when  1  read  that  story  as  a  little  boy,  I  said  to  myself,  I 
will  be  Mr.  Eyes  ;  I  will  not  be  Mr.  No  Eyes,  and  Mr.  Eyes  I  have 
tried  to  be  ever  since  ;  and  Mr.  Eyes,  I  advise  you,  every  one  ( if 
you,  to  be,  if  you  wish  to  be  happy  and  successful. 

"Ah,  my  dear  boys,  if  you  knew  the  idle,  vacant,  useless  li.e 
which  too  many  young  men  lead  when  their  day's  work  is  don;, 
and  done  spiritlessly,  and  therefore  done  ill,  having  nothing  to  fafl 
back  on  but  the  theatre,  or  billiards,  or  the  gossip  at  their  club,  or 
if  they  be  out  in  .a  hot  country,  everlasting  pale  ale ;  and  con- 
tinually tempted  to  sin,  and  shame,  and  ruin  by  their  own  idleness, 
while  they  miss  opportunities  of  making  valuable  discoveries,  of 
distinguishing  themselves,  and  helping  themselves  forward  in  life  ; 
then  you  would  make  it  a  duty  to  get  a  habit  of  observing,  no 
matter  what  you  observe,  and  of  having  at  least  some  healthy  and 
rational  pursuit  with  which  to  fill  up  your  leisure  hours. 

"The  study  of  natural  history,  of  antiquities,  of  geography,  of 
cliemistry,  any  study  which  will  occupy  your  minds,  may  be  the 
means,  whether  out  on  some  foreign  station,  or  home  here  at  work 
in  ]>ondon,  of  keeping  you  out  of  temptation  and  misery,  of  which, 
thank  God,  you  as  yet  know  nothing. 

"  I  am  happy  to  hear  that  there  are  many  of  you  who  don't  need 
(his  advice,  some  who  are  working  well  at  chemistry,  some  whr 
have  already  begun  to  use  your  eyes,  and  to  make  collections  of 
plxnts,  insects,  and  birds'  eggs. 

"  That  is  good  as  far  as  it  goes.  As  for  bird-nesting,  I  thmk  it  a 
tnmly  and   excellent  pursuit;*  no  one  has   worked  harder   at  it 

*  He  never  allowed  his  own  boys  to  take  nests,  or  more  than  one,  or  at  tnosl 
two  eggs  out  of  a  nest  where  there  were  several,  so  :hat  the  mother  bird  nrighl 
ool  miss  them. 


334  diaries  Kings  ley. 

than  I,  when  I  was  young,  or  should  Hke  better  tc  go  bird-nesting 
now,  if  I  was  not  getting  rather  too  stiff  and  heavy  to  bark  up  to  a 
hawk's  nest. 

"  But  see.  Because  every  boy  collects  for  himself,  there  is  a  gieat 
deal  of  unnecessary  destruction  of  eggs,  especially  of  the  small  soft- 
billed  birds,  which  are  easiest  got,  and  are  the  very  ones  which 
ought  tj  be  spared,  on  account  of  their  great  usefulness  to  the 
farmer  in  destroying  insects  ;  and  next — Pray,  where  will  nine-tenths 
of  those  eggs  be  seen  a  few  days  hence  ?  smashed,  and  in  the  dust- 
hole,  and  so  of  the  insects  and  plants. 

"  Now  it  seems  to  me,  that  if  fellows  were  collecting  for  a  Col- 
lege Museum,  instead  of  every  one  for  himself,  it  would  save  a  great 
deal  of  waste,  and  save  the  things  themselves  likewise. 

"  As  for  a  fellow  liking  to  say,  *I  have  got  this,  and  I  will  keep 
It  to  myself,  I  like  to  have  a  better  collection  than  any  one  else,' 
•^hat  is  natural  enough  ;  but  like  a  great  many  natural  things,  rathei 
a  low  feeling,  if  you  will  excuse  my  saying  so.  Which  is  better,  tc 
keep  a  thing  to  yourselves,  locked  up  in  your  own  drawers,  or  to 
put  them  into  the  common  stock,  for  the  pleasure  of  every  one  ? 
and  which  is  really  more  honor  to  you,  to  be  able  to  say  to  two  or 
three  of  your  friends,  '  I  have  got  an  egg  which  you  have  not,'  or  to 
have  the  ^gg,  or  whatever  else  it  may  be,  in  a  public  collection,  to 
be  seen  by  every  one,  by  boys,  years  hence,  after  you  are  grown  up  ? 
For  myself,  I  can't  think  of  a  better  way  of  keeping  up  a  corporate 
feeling  in  the  college,  and  binding  the  different  generations,  as  they 
succeed  each  other,  together  in  one,  than  a  museum  of  this  kind, 
in  which  boys  should  see  the  names  of  those  who  have  gone  before 
them,  as  having  presented  this  or  that  curious  object. 

"So  strongly  do  I  feel  it,  that  I  have  asked  Dr.  Benson's  leave 
to  give  two  prizes  every  year.  One  for  the  most  rare  and  curious 
thing  of  any  kind — whether  in  natural  history,  geology,  antiquities, 
or  anything  else  tit  for  a  museum,  which  has  been  bond  fide  found 
by  the  boy  himself;  and  a  second  prize  for  the  most  curious  thing 
contributed  by  a  boy,  never  mind  how  he  has  got  it,  provided  only 
that  he  has  not  bought  it,  fc^r  against  that  there  are  objections. 
That  would  give  the  boys  with  plenty  of  money  a  chance  which  the 
oth(  rs  had  not. 

"  But  there  are  so  many  of  you  who  have  relations  abroad,  or  in  the 
country,  that  you  will  be  able  to  obtain  from  them  rare  and  curious 
objects  which  you  could  not  collect  yourselves,  and  I  advise  you 
to  turn  sturdy  beggars,  and  get  hold  (by  all  fair  means)  of  anything 
and  everything  worth  putting  in  the  Museum,  and  out  of  which  you 
can  coax  or  beg  anybody  whatsoever,  old  or  young. 

"  And,  mind,  you  will  have  help.  I  myself  am  ready  to  give  as 
many  curious  things  as  I  can,  out  of  my  own  colleciion  ;  and  if 
this  Museum  had  been  started  ten  or  twenty  years  ago,  I  could 
have  given  you  a  great  deal  more,  but  my  collections  have  Ijeep 


Holidays  and  how  to  Employ    Them.        335 

too  much  and  often  spoilt  and  broken,  and  at  last  the  rer.inant 
given  away  in  despair,  just  because  I  had  no  museum  to  put  thein 
in.  If  there  had  been  one  where  I  was  at  school,  1  co:il:l  have 
saved  for  it  hundreds  of  different  things  which  are  now  ir  dust- 
noles  in  half-a-dozen  counties,  and  also  should  have  had  the  heart 
to  collect  many  things  which  I  have  let  ])ass  me,  dimply  because 
I  did  not  care  to  keep  them,  having  nowhere  to  put  them,  and  so 
it  will  be  with  you. 

"  1  only  mention  myself  as  an  example  of  what  I  have  becai 
saying.  But  it  is  not  to  me  merely  that  you  must  look  for  help.  1 
am  happy  to  say  that  you  will  be  helped  by  many  (I  believe)  real 
men  of  science,  who  will  send  the  Museum  such  things  as  are  wanted 
to  start  it  well.  To  start  it  well  with  'Typical  Forms,'  by  which 
you  can  arrange  and  classify  what  you  find.  They  will  as  it  were 
stake  out  the  ground  for  you,  and  you  must  fill  up  the  gaps,  and  I 
don't  doubt  you  will  do  it,  and  well. 

"  I  am  sure  you  can,  if  you  will  see  now  here  is  an  opportunity 
of  making  a  beginning — during  the  next  vacation. 

"  Dr.  Benson  has  said  that  he  will  be  ready  to  receive  contribu- 
tions from  scientific  men  after  the  holidays.  But  he  has  guaranteed 
for  you  in  return,  that  some  of  you,  at  least,  will  begin  collecting 
for  the  museum  during  the  holidays. 

"What  can  you  do  better?  I  am  sure  your  holidays  would  be 
much  happier  for  it.  I  don't  think  boys'  holidays  are  in  general  so 
very  happy.  Mine  used  to  be  :  but  why  ?  Because  the  moment 
I  got  home,  I  went  on  with  the  same  work  in  which  I  emi)loyed 
every  half  holiday  :  natural  history  and  geology.  But  many  boys 
seem  to  me  in  the  holidays  very  much  like  Jack  when  he  is  i)aid 
off  at  Portsmouth.  He  is  suddenly  free  fiom  the  discipline  of  ship- 
board. He  has  plenty  of  money  in  his  pocket,  and  he  sets  to,  to 
have  a  lark,  and  makes  a  fool  of  himself  till  his  money  is  spent ;  ai:d 
then  he  is  very  poor,  and  sick,  and  seedy,  and  cross,  and  disgusted 
with  himself,  and  longs  to  get  a  fresh  ship  and  go  to  work  again — • 
as  a  great  many  fellows,  I  suspect,  long  for  the  holidays  to  be 
over.  They  suddenly  change  the  regular  discipline  of  work  for 
complete  idleness,  and  after  the  first  burst  is  over,  they  get  very 
ofien  tired,  and  stupid,  and  cross,  because  they  have  nothing  to  do, 
except  eating  fruit  and  tormenting  their  sisters. 

"  How  much  better  for  them  to  have  something  to  do  like  this. 
Scmerl^ing  which  will  not  tire  their  minds,  because  it  is  quite  diff<;r 
ent  from  their  school  work,  and  therefore  a  true  amusement,  which 
lets  them  cut  the  muses  for  awhile;  and  something,  t?o,  which 
they  can  take  a  pride  in,  because  it  is  done  of  their  own  fiee  will, 
and  they  can  look  forward  to  putting  their  gains  ir,  the  Museum 
when  they  come  back,  and  saying,  '  This  is  my  holiday  work,  thii 
is  what  I  have  won  for  the  College  since  I  have  been  away.' 

"Take  this  hin"  for  your  holidays,  mid  take  it  too  for  afterlife. 


33^  Charles  Kings  ley. 

For  I  am  sure  if  you  get  \\\  an  interest  for  this  JNluseum  here,  yon 
will  not  lose  it  when  you  go  away. 

"Many  of  you  will  go  abroad,  perhaps  spend  much  of  your  lives 
abroad,  and  I  am  sure  you  will  use  the  opportunities  you  will  then 
have  to  enrich  the  Museum  of  the  College,  and  be  its  benefactors 
each  according  to  your  powers  throughout  your  lives. 

"  Ikit  there  is  one  interest,  young  gentlemen,  which  I  have  morf 
5t  l;eart  even  than  the  interest  of  Wellington  College,  much  as  1 
:ov3  it,  for  its  own  sake  and  for  the  sake  of  that  great  Prince  be- 
neath whose  fostering  shadow  it  grew  up,  and  to  whom  this  College, 
like  me  myself,  owes  more  than  we  shall  either  of  us  ever  repay ; 
yet  there  is  an  interest  which  I  have  still  more  at  heart,  and  that  i? 
the  interest  of  Science  herself. 

"  Ah,  that  I  could  make  you  understand  what  an  interest  that  is. 
The  interest  of  the  health,  the  wealth,  the  wisdom  of  generations 
yet  unborn.  Ah,  that  I  could  make  you  understand  what  a  noble 
thing  it  is  to  be  men  of  science  ;  rich  with  a  sound  learning  which 
man  can  neither  give  nor  take  away  ;  useful  to  thousands  whom 
you  have  never  seen,  but  who  may  be  blessing  your  name  hundreds 
of  years  after  you  are  mouldering  in  the  grave,  the  equals  and  the 
comj^anions  of  the  noblest  and  the  most  powerful.  Taking  a  rank 
higher  than  even  Queen  Victoria  herself  can  give,  by  right  of  that 
knowledge  which  is  power. 

"But  I  must  not  expect  you  to  see  that  yet.  All  I  can  do  is  to 
hope  that  my  fancy  may  be  fulfilled  hereafter,  that  this  Museum 
may  be  the  starting  point  of  a  school  of  scientific  men,  few  it  may 
be  in  number,  but  strong,  because  bound  together  by  common 
affection  for  their  College,  and  their  Museum,  and  each  other.  Scat- 
tered perhaps  over  the  world,  but  communicating  their  discoveries 
to  each  other  without  jealousy  or  dispute,  and  sending  home  their 
prizes  to  enrich  the  stores  of  their  old  Museum,  and  to  teach  the 
generations  of  lads  who  will  be  learning  here,  while  they  are  grown 
men,  doing  the  work  of  men  over  the  world. 

"  Ah,  that  it  might  so  happen.  Ah,  that  even  one  great  man  of 
science  might  be  bred  up  in  these  halls,  one  man  who  should 
discover  a  great  truth,  or  do  a  great  deed  for  the  benefit  of  his 
fellow  men. 

"If  this  College  and  Museum  could  produce  but  one  master  of 
natuial  knowledge,  like  Murchison  or  Lyell,  Owen  or  Huxley, 
Faiaday  or  Grove,  or  even  one  great  discoverer,  like  Ross,  or 
Sturt,  or  Speke,  who  has  just  solved  the  mystery  of  ages,  the 
mystery  after  which  Lucan  makes  Julius  Caesar  long,  as  the  highest 
summit  of  his  ambition  :  to  leave  others  to  conquer  nations,  while 
he  himself  sought  for  the  hidden  sources  of  the  Nile.  Or,  if  it  ever 
should  produce  one  man  able  and  learned  enough  to  do  such  a 
deed  as  that  of  my  friend  Clements  Markham,  who  penetrated,  in 
the  face  of  danger  and  deatl ,  the  trackless  forests  of  the  Andes,  to 


Darwiri  Co7tquering.  2iZl 

bring  home  thence  the  plants  of  Peruvian  bark,  which,  transplanted 
inlo  llindostan,  will  save  the  lives  of  tens  of  thousands — English  and 
Hindoos — then,  young  gentlemen,  all  the  trouble,  all  the  care, 
which  shall  have  been  spent  on  this  Museum — I  had  almost  said, 
r.pon  this  whole  College,  will  have  been  well  repaid." 


TO  SIR  CHARLES   LYELL,   F.G.S.,   ETC-,   ETC. 

EVERSLEV,  y^//v7  2S,    1863. 

My  dear  Sir  Charles, 

"  I  have  at  last  got  through  your  big  book* — big  in  all  senses, 
fvir  it  is  as  full  as  an  egg,  and  as  pregnant.  But  I  have  read  specially 
ll.e  ciiapter  on  the  Analogy  of  Language  and  Natural  History,  and 
am  delighted.  I  had  no  suspicion  that  so  comijlete  a  case  could 
be  made  out.  And  it  does  not  seem  to  me  a  mere  '  illustration  '  of 
the  deceptive  kind  used  in  Scotch  sermons,  whereby  *  *  *  *  used 
lO  make  anything  prove  anything  else  ;  but  a  real  analogue,  of  the 
same  inductive  method  applied  to  a  set  of  facts  homologous,  though 
distinct. 

"  I  am  very  anxious  to  see  a  Museum  established  at  the  Welling- 
ton College,  for  training  the  boys  in  the  knowledge  of  nature,  and 
in  the  pursuits  of  natural  science.  As  most  of  the  boys  go  abroad 
in  after-life,  it  seems  to  open  a  great  door  for  your  scheme,  of  hav- 
ing educated  gentlemen-naturalists  spread  abroad,  and  in  commu- 
nication with  each  other  and  with  the  societies  at  home,  and  I  shall 
soon  go  shamelessly  a-begging  for  typical  forms  of  every  kind,  the 
intermediate  gaps  to  be  filled  up  by  the  boys  themselves." 

TO  rev.    F.   D.   MAURICE. 

"  I  am  very  busy  working  out  points  of  Natural  Theology,  by  the 
strange  light  of  Huxley,  Darwin,  and  Lyell.  1  think  I  shall  come 
to  something  worth  having  before  I  have  done.  But  I  am  not  go- 
ing to  reach  into  fruit  this  seven  years,  for  this  reason  :  The  state 
of  the  scientific  mind  is  most  curious  ;  Darwin  is  conquering  eveiy- 
where,  and  rushing  in  like  a  flood,  by  the  mere  force  of  truth  and  fact. 
'I  he  one  or  two  who  hold  out  are  forced  to  try  all  sorts  of  subter- 
fi:ges  as  to  fact,  or  else  by  evoking  the  odijwi  theologicum 

"  But  they  find  that  now  they  have  got  rid  of  an  interfering  God 
—a  master-magician,  as  I  call  it — they  have  to  choose  between  the 
absolute  empire  of  accident,  and  a  living,  immanent,  ever- working 
God. 

"  Grove's  truly  great  mind  has  seized  the  latter  alternative  al- 
ready, on  the  side  of  chemistry.  Ansted,  in  his  Rede  Lecture, 
is  feeling  for   it  in  geology ;  and  so  is  Lyell  ;  and  I,  in  my  small 

*  '•  Antiquity  of  Man." 
22 


$^S  Charles  Kiugslcy. 

way  of  zoology,  am  urging  it  on  Huxley,  RoUeston,  and  Bates,  who 
has  just  discovered  facts  about  certain  butterflies  in  the  valley  of 
the  Amazon,  which  have  filled  me,  and,  1  trust,  others,  with  utter 
astonishment  and  awe.  Verily,  God  is  great,  or  else  there  is  no 
Go'l  at  all. 

"That  mystery  of  generation  has  been  felt  in  all  ages  to  be  the 
cn.ix,  the  meeting  point  of  heaven  and  earth,  of  God  or  no  God  ; 
and  it  is  being  felt  so  now  more  intensely  than  ever.     All  turrs  on 

it So  does  human  thought  come  round  again  in  cyclea 

to  the  same  point  ;  but,  thank  God,  each  time  with  more  and 
sounder  knowledge.  All  will  be  well,  if  we  will  but  remember 
what  is  written  :   '  He  that  believeth  will  not  make  haste.' 

"  But  I  ought  to  say,  that  by  far  the  best  forward  step  in  Natural 
Theology  has  been  made  by  an  American,  Dr.  Asa  Gray,*  who 
has  said  better  than  I  can  all  that  I  want  to  say.  1  send  you  his 
pamphkt,  entreating  you  to  read  it,  especially  pp.  28-49,  which 
are  in  my  eyes  unanswerable. 

"A  passage  between  me  and  *  *  *  *  (we  are  most  intimate  and 
confidential,  though  more  utterly  opposed  in  thought  than  he  is  to 
the  general  religious  or  other  public),  may  amuse  you.  He  says 
somewhere,  '  the  ape's  brain  is  almost  exactly  like  the  man's,  and 
so  is  his  throat.  See,  then,  what  enormously  different  results  may 
be  produced  by  the  slightest  difference  in  structure  !  '  1  tell  him, 
'not  a  bit  ;  you  are  putting  the  cart  before  the  horse,  like  the  rest 
of  the  world.  If  you  won't  believe  my  great  new  doctrine  (which, 
by  the  bye,  is  as  old  as  the  Greeks),  that  souls  secrete  their  bodies, 

as  snails  do  shells,  you  will  remain  in  outer  darkness 

I  know  an  ape's  brain  and  throat  are  almost  exactly  like  a  man's — 
and  what  does  that  prove  ?  That  the  ape  is  a  fool  and  a  muff,  who 
has  tools  very  nearly  as  good  as  a  man's,  and  yet  can't  use  them, 
while  the  man  can  do  the  most  wonderful  thing  with  tools  very 
little  better  than  an  ape's. 

"  '  If  men  had  had  ape's  bodies  they  would  have  got  on  very 
tolerably  with  them,  because  they  had  men's  souls  to  work  the 
bodies  with.  While  an  ape's  soul  in  a  man's  body  would  be  only 
^  rather  more  filthy  nuisance  than  he  is  now.  You  fancy  that  the 
axe  uses  the  workman,  I  say  that  the  workman  uses  the  axe,  and 
that  though  he  can  work  rather  better  with  a  good  tool  than  a  bad 
one,  the  great  point  is,  what  sort  of  workman  is  he — an  ape-soul  or 
a  human  soul  ? ' 

*  When  in  America,  in  1874,  Mr.  Kingsley  liad  ihe  happiness  of  making  ac 
qiiaint;ince  with  Professor  Asa  Gray,  who  among  many  other  botanical  workj 
had  lately  published  his  admirable  little  book  for  the  young  on  "Cliinlunj; 
Plants."  In  an  important  work  just  published  in  Boston  (1876)  on  Darwiiusio, 
the  Professor  has  made  q  lotations  from  Mr  Kingsley's  "  VVf  it  minster  ier 
mons." 


Letters  to  Huxley  and  Darwin.  339 

"Whereby  you  may  perceive  that  I  am  not  going  astray  into 
materialism  as  yet." 

TO    PROFESSOR    HUXLEY. 

EVERSLEY,  Jiint  28,  1863 

"Don't  take  the  trouble  to  answer  this.  ///  re  great  toes  of  apes 
and  men.  Have  you  ever  remarked  the  variableness  of  the  haiku 
in  our  race  ? 

*'  The  old  Greek  is  remarkable  for  a  small  hallux  and  large  secon  1 
toe,  reaching  beyond  it,  and  that  is  held  (and  rightly)  as  the  nioi,t 
pel  feet  form  of  the  human  foot.  But  in  all  modern  Indo- Gothic 
laces  is  it  the  same  ?  In  all  children  which  I  have  seen  (and  1 
have  watched  carefully)  the  hallux  is  far  larger  and  longer  in  propor- 
tion to  the  other  toes  than  in  the  Greek  statues.  This  is  not  caused 
(as  commonly  supposed)  by  wearing  shoes,  for  it  holds  in  the  Irish 
children  who  have  never  worn  them. 

"  Now  surely  such  a  variation  m  the  size  of  the  hallux  gives 
probability  at  least  to  your  deductions  from  its  great  variability  in 
the  apes. 

"  Science  owes  you  the  honor  of  having  demonstrated  that  the 
hind  hand  of  the  apes  is  not  a  hand,  but  a  true  foot.  Think  over 
what  I  have  said." 

TO   CHARLES    DARWIN,    ESQ.,    F.R.S.,    &C. 

EVERSLEY,  Jime  14,  1863. 

"  I  have  been  reading  with  delight  and  instruction  your  paper  on 
climbing  plants. 

"Your  explanation  of  an  old  puzzle  of  mine — Lathyrus  Nissolia 
— is  a  master-piece.  Nothing  can  be  more  conclusive.  That  of 
the  filament  at  the  petiole-end  of  the  bean  is  equally  satisfactory. 

"Ah,  that  I  could  begin  to  study  nature  anew,  now  that  you 
have  made  it  to  me  a  live  thing,  not  a  dead  collection  of  names. 
Hut  my  work  lies  elsewhere  now.  Your  work,  nevertheless,  helps 
rnne  at  every  turn.  It  is  better  that  the  division  of  labor  should 
I  e  complete,  and  that  each  man  should  do  only  one  thing,  while 
Lc  looks  on,  as  he  finds  time,  at  what  otheis  are  doing,  and  so 
gets  laws  from  other  sciences  which  he  can  apply,  as  I  do,  to  rnj 
own.' 

TO    H.    BATES,    ESQ.,    F.R.S. 

EVERSLEY,   1863. 

"  There  is  no  physical  cause  discovered  by  the  microscope  why 
ova  should  develope  each  according  to  its  kind.  To  a  philosopher, 
a  hen  bringing  forth  a  crocodile  would  not  be  so  wonderfu),  as 
the  hundred  thousands  of  hens  never  bringing  forth  any  thing  lu' 
bens. 


340  Charles  Kings  ley. 

"  To  talk  of  its  being  done  by  laws  impressed  on  mattei>  is  to  use 
mere  ^v^o^ds.  How  can  a  law  be  impressed  on  matter?  Is  it  in 
the  matter?  Is  it  impressed  thereon  as  a  seal  on  wax?  Or  even 
as  a  i)olar  arrangement  of  parts  on  a  solid  ?  If  so.  it  is  discoverable 
by  the  microscope.  But  if  'it'  were  found,  that  would  not  be  a 
I^aw,  but  only  a  present  and  temporary  phenomenon — an  arrange- 
ment or  formation  of  particles  for  the  time  be'ng — not  the  Law  or 
formative  cause  thereof;  and  we  should  be  just  as  far  from  the 
•causa  causaciva'  of  the  development  as  ever.  I  hope  I  am  not 
boring  you  by  all  this.  You  will  see  whither  it  is  tending ;  and  it 
iS  the  result  of  long  and  ])ainful  thought,  in  which  I  have  been  try- 
ing to  bring  my  little  logic  and  metaphysic  to  bear — not  on  physical 
science  herself,  for  she  stands  on  her  own  ground,  microscope  in 
hand,  and  will  allow  no  intruder,  however  venerable  ;  but  on  the 
nomenclature  of  physical  science,  which  is  to  me  painfully  confused, 
from  a  want  in  our  scientific  men  of  that  logical  training  by  which 
things  are  rightly  named,  though  they  cannot  be  discovered  thereby. 
And  this  common  metaphor  of  'a  Law  imprest  on  matter'  is  one 
which  must  be  regarded  merely  as  a  metaphor,  and  an  approxima- 
tive symbol,  useless  for  accurate  science,  or  we  shall  get  into  hor- 
tible  confusions  of  s]:)eech  and  thought  about  material  causes  and 
their  limits,  especially  now  when  Darwin,  &c.,  on  one  hand,  and 
Lyell,  &c.,  on  another,  have  shown  us  what  an  enormous  amount 
of  the  world's  work  is  done  by  causes  strictly  material. 

"  For  myself,  I  agree  with  Dr.  Asa  Gray,  in  his  admirable  pam- 
phlet on  Darwin,  that  the  tendency  of  physical  science  is  '  not 
towards  the  omnipotence  of  Matter,  but  to  the  omnipotence  of 
Spirit.  And  I  am  inclined  to  regard  the  development  of  an  ovum 
according  to  kind  as  the  result  of  a  strictly  immaterial  and  spiritual 
agency."     .... 

We  now  turn  from  science  to  fishing,  and  venture  to  insert,  for 
those  who  never  met  him  in  his  genial  merry  moods,  a  letter  or 
two  written  in  the  joy  of  his  heart  when  for  a  short  moment  all 
caio  was  cast  away,  and  he  became  a  boy  again. 

TO  J.  A.  FROUDE,  ESQ. 

White  Hart,  Whitchurch,  May  27,  1S63. 

*'  And  is  this  the  way  you  expect  to  get  fishing  when  you  want 
It,  axing  for  it  with  fierce  im[)ortunity,  and  then  running  away  and 
leaving  your  disconsolate  partner  to  terrify  himself  into  fiddlestrings 
with  fancymg  what  was  the  matter?  ....  Well  .... 
but  you  have  lost  a  lovely  day's  fishing.  The  first  was  not  much, 
owing  to  the  furious  rain  ;  but  yesterday  I  went  up  the  side  stream 
in  the  Park,  and  after  the  rain  it  was  '^harming.     They  took  l.isi  0 


Toads  in  a  Hole.  341 

hi  tie  Hack  gnat,  and  then  settled  to  a  red  palmer  and  the  conquer- 
ing li.rkey-brown,  with  which  we  killed  so  many  here  before.  My 
beloved  black  alder  they  did  not  care  for — for  why  ?  She  was  not 
out.  The  stream  was  not  as  good  as  when  we  fished  it  last,  owing 
to  extreme  drought.  But  I  kept  seven  brace  of  good  fish,  and 
threw  in  twelve.  None  over  i^  lb.  though.  After  two  came  a 
ferocious  storm,  and  chop  of  wind  to  VV.,  and  after  that  I  did  noth- 
ing. Oh  !  I  wish  you  had  been  with  me  ;  but  if  you  will  be  good 
you  shall  come  down  week  aftei  next,  and  Mrs.  Alder  will  be  out 
then,  and  perhaps  a  few  drakes  on  the  lower  shallow,  and  oh,  won't 
we  pitch  into  the  fish  ?  Lord  P.  is  gone  to  Bath,  and  Lady  P.  to 
High  Clere So  I  am  going  home  by  mid-day  train." 

TO    REV.    E.    PITCAIRN   CAMPBELL. 

EVERSLEY,   May  29,  1863. 

"  By  the  strangest  coincidence.  Sir  Charles  Bunbury,  a  great 
geologist  and  botanist,  and  I  were  talking  over  this  very  evening 
Sir  Alex.  Gordon  Gumming' s  toads  in  a  hole.  I  promised  him  to 
write  to  Sir  A.  on  the  strength  of  his  kind  messages  to  me,  for 
further  information  ;  and  behold,  on  coming  home  from  a  dinner- 
party at  General  Napier's,  your  letter  anent  them  !  Verily,  great 
things  are  in  these  toads'  insides,  ar  so  strange  a  coincidence  would 
not  have  happened. 

"  Now,  I  say  to  you  what  I  said  to  him.  Toads  are  rum  brutes. 
Like  all  batrachians,  they  breathe  through  their  skins,  as  well  as 
through  their  lungs.  The  instinct  (as  I  have  often  proved)  of  the 
little  beggars  an  inch  long,  fresh  from  water  and  tadpoledom,  is  to 
creep  foolishly  into  the  dirtiest  hole  they  can  find,  in  old  walls,  etc., 
where  99  out  of  a  100  are  eaten  by  rats  and  beetles,  as  I  hold — or 
else  the  world  would  have  been  toadied  to  utter  disgust  and  horror 
long  ago.  Some  of  these  may  get  down  into  cracks  in  rocks,  and 
never  get  back.  The  holes  may  be  silted  up  by  mud  and  sand. 
The  toad  may  exist  and  grow  in  that  hole  for  Heaven  knows  how 
long,  I  dare  say  for  centuries,  for  I  don't  think  he  would  want  food 
to  grow  ;  oxygen  and  water  he  must  have,  but  a  very  little  would  do. 

"  Accordu:igly,  all  the  cases  of  toads  in  a  hole  which  I  have  in- 
vestigated have  been  either  in  old  walls  or  limestone  rocks,  which 
are  porous  as  a  sponge,  absorb  water  and  air,  and  give  them  out 
slowly,  but  enough  to  keep  a  cold-blooded  batrachian  alive. 

"  Now,  Sir  Alex.  Gordon  Cumming's  toads  have  puzzled  me.     I 
have  read  all  that  he  has  written,  and  thought  over  it,  comparing 
it  with  all  I  know,  and  I  think  I  know  almost  every  case  on  record 
ar.d  I  am  confounded.  Will  you  ask  him  for  me  what  is  the  natu: 
of  this  conglomerate  in  which  the  toads  are  ? 

"  I  said  to-night  I  would  not  believe  in  toads  anywhere  but  in 
limestone  or  chalk,  /  e.^  in  strongly  hydraulic  strata.      Sir  Charles 


342  Charles  Kings  ley. 

Bunbury  corrected  me,  by  saying  that  certain  volcanic  recks, 
amygdaloid  basalts,  were  as  full  of  holes  as  limestone,  and  at 
strongly  hydraulic,  and  so  toads  might  live  in  them. 

**]f  Sir  A.  G.  C.  woidd  send  us  a  piece  of  the  rock  in  which  the 
toads  lie,  we  could  tell  him  more.  But  that  the  toads  are  con  tern 
poraneous  with  the  rock,  or  have  got  there  any  way  save  through 
cracks  now  filled  up,  and  so  overlooked  in  the  blasting  and 
cutting,  is,  I  believe,  impossible,  and  cannot  be — though  (iod 
alone  knows  what  cannot  be — and  so  I  wait  for  further  information 

"Oh,  that  I  could  accept  Sir  Alexander's  most  kind  invitation, 
and  come  and  see  the  toads  myself,  let  alone  killing  the  salmon  ! 
But  I  cannot. 

"We  must  send  up  one  of  our  F.G.S.'s  to  see  into  the  mat- 
ter  

"Your  flies  are  to  me  wonderful.  I  will  try  them  on  Itcnen 
next  week.  But  I  have  been  killing  well  in  burning  sun,  and 
water  as  clear  as  air,  on  flies  which  are  to  them  as  bumble  bees." 

In  the  summer  of  this  year  the  Prince  and  Princess  of  Wales 
honored  the  Oxford  Commemoration  with  their  presence,  and  ac- 
cording to  custom  His  Royal  Highness  sent  in  previously  the 
names  of  those  on  whom  he  wished  the  University  to  bestow  the 
honorary  degree  of  D.C.L.  Among  those  names  was  that  of 
Charles  Kingsley,  who  was  one  of  the  Prince's  private  chaplains. 
He  had  several  warm  friends  in  the  University,  among  others 
Dean  Stanley  (then  Canon  of  Christ  Church),  Max  Miiller,  &c., 
who  would  have  gladly  seen  this  honor  conferred  on  him  ;  but 
among  the  extreme  High  Church  party  there  were  dissentient 
voices;  and  the  Professor  of  Hebrew  took  the  lead  in  opposing 
the  degree  on  the  ground  of  Mr.  Kingsley's  published  works, 
especially  "  Hypatia,"  which  he  considered  "  an  immoral  book," 
and  one  calculated  to  encourage  young  men  in  profligacy  and  false 
doctrine — the  very  charge,  in  fact,  that  twelve  years  before  had 
been  brought  against  ''  Yeast "  by  an  Oxford  graduate  of  the  same 
party.  If  the  vote  in  Convocation  had  been  carried  in  Mr.  Kings* 
ley's  favor,  it  would  have  been  anything  but  unanimous,  and  a 
threat  being  made  of  a  "  non  placet  "  in  the  theatre  at  the  time  of 
conferring  the  degree,  his  friends  considerately  advised  him  to  re- 
tire ;  and  he,  in  order  to  avoid  disturbing  the  peace  of  the  Univer- 
sity on  such  an  auspicious  occasion,  as  considerately  followed  their 
advice.  The  following  year  some  of  his  Oxford  friends  chival- 
rously offered  to  propose  his  name  again  for  a  distinction  which  he 


Cole7iso  a7id  the  Pentateuch.  343 

would  have  valued  as  much  as  any  man  living  ;  but  he  declined, 
saying  tliat  "  it  was  an  honor  that  must  be  given,  not  fought  for," 
and  that  till  the  imputation  of  immorality  was  withdrawn  from  his 
book  ='  Hypatia,"  he  could  not  even  in  prospect  accept  the  offer. 

In  1866  Bishop  Wilberforce,  then  Bishop  of  Oxford,  wrote  to  ask 
him  to  preach  one  of  a  course  of  sermons  in  the  University  in 
J  ent,  but  he  declined  that  honor  too  on  the  same  grounds  as  the 
degi  ee. 

"  I  do  not  deny,"  he  says  in  a  letter  to  Dean  Stanley,  "a  great 

hankering  for  years  past,  after  an  Oxford  D.C.L But 

all  these  things  are  right,  and  come  with  a  reason,  and  a  purpose, 
and  a  meaning ;  and  he  who  grumbles  at  them  or  at  worse,  be- 
lieve th  not  (for  the  time  being  at  least)  in  the  Living  God." 

Again,  to  one  who  would  have  liked  to  see  honor  upon  honor 
showered  upon  him — "  Pray,  pray  take  what  God  does  7iot  send  an 

«<7/goodfor  us,  and  trust  Him  to  send  us  what  is  good " 

And  so,  when  a  disappointment  was  over,  he  would  root  out  the 
li.emory  of  it  before  it  had  time  to  rankle  in  his  mind  and  sow  any 
seed  of  envy  or  malice.  He  lived  on  a  high  level,  and  to  keep 
there  he  knew  that  he  must  crush  down  the  unforgiving  spirit 
which  springs  from  egotism  in  the  hearts  of  less  noble  men. 
Coupled  with  this,  too,  was  not  only  his  intense  faith  in  the  govern- 
ment of  God,  as  shown  in  the  smallest  as  well  as  the  most  impor- 
tant events  of  life,  and  in  His  education  of  His  creatures,  by  each 
and  every  one  of  these  events,  but  a  deep  sense  of  his  own  unwor- 
thiness,  which  made  him  content  (a  word  he  loved)  with  what  he 
had  already  as  all  too  good  for  him. 

liishop  Colenso's  work  on  the  Pentateuch  had  lately  appeared 
ap.'l  was  the  topic  of  general  discussion,  which  led  to  his  preaching 
a  series  of  sermons  *  on  the  subject  to  his  own  people  at  Eversley. 
hi  a  li.rer  to  Mr.  Maurice,  he  said,  in  reference  to  the  one  on  *ha 
Ciedibility  of  the  Plagues  of  Egypt  and  of  miracles  in  geneiai  :-  ■ 

"All  this  talk  about  the  Pentateuch  is  making  me  feel  its  unique 
value  and  divineness  so  much  more  than  ever  1  did,  that  I  burn  to 
say  something  worth  hearing  about  it,  and  I  cannot  help  hoping 
that  what  I  say  may  be  listened  to  by  some  of  those  who  know 
that  I  shrink  from   no  lengths  in  physical  science ] 

*  "  Sermons  o/i  the  Pentateuch."     Macmillan. 


344  Charles  KiiigsUy. 

am  sure  that  science  and  the  creeds  will  shake  hands  at  last,  if  onlj 
people  will  leave  both  alone,  and  I  pray  that  by  God's  grace  per- 
chance I  may  help  tliem  to  do  so. 

''My  only  fear  is  that  people  will  fancy  me  a  verbal  inspiration' 
monger,  which,  as  you  know,  I  am  not ;  and  that  I  shall,  in  due 
time,  suffer  the  fate  of  most  who  see  both  sides,  and  be  considered 
by  both  a  hypocrite  and  a  traitor."     .... 


TO    REV.    F.    D.    MAURICE. 

September  i8,  1863. 

**  I  am  very  anxious  to  know  what  you  think  of  Stanley's 
'  l^ectures  on  the  Jewish  Church.'  I  have  read  them  with  the 
greatest  pleasure  and  comfort,  and  look  on  the  book  as  the  best 
antidote  to  Colenso  wliich  I  have  yet  seen,  because  it  fights  him 
on  his  own  ground,  and  yet  ignores  him  and  his  negative  form  ol 
thought, 

"  I  think  tlie  book  will  give  comfort  to  thousands,  and  make 
tlieiii  take  up  their  Bibles  once  more  with   heart   and  hope.      I  do 

trust  that  you  feel  as  I  do  about  it I  have  been  so 

*run  about'  with  parish  work  and  confirmation  work,  that  I  have 
neglected  to  tell  you  how  deeply  I  feel  your  approval  of  my  ser- 
mons. 1  do  hope  and  trust  that  they  may  do  a  little  good.  I  find 
that  the  Aldershot  and  Sandhurst  mustachios  come  to  hear  these 
discourses  of  mine  every  Sunday — and  nay  heart  goes  out  to  them 
in  great  yearnings.  Dear  fellows — when  I  see  them  in  the  pews, 
and  the  smock  frocks  in  the  open  seats,  I  feel  as  if  I  was  not  quite 
useless  in  the  world,  and  that  I  was  beginning  to  fulfil  the  one  idea 
of  my  life,  to  tell  Esau  that  he  has  a  birthright  as  well  as  Jacob.  I 
do  feel  very  deeply  the  truth  which  John  Mill  has  set  forth  in  a  one- 
sided way  in  his  new  book  on  Liberty — pj).  88-90,  I  think,  about 
the  past  morality  of  Christendom  having  taken  a  somewhat  abject 
tone,  and  requiring,  as  a  complement,  the  old  Pagan  virtues,  which 
our  forefathers  learnt  from  Plutarch's  Lives,  ,'ind  of  which  the 
memory  still  lingers  in  our  classical  education.  I  do  not  believe, 
of  course,  that  the  want  really  exists;  but  that  it  has  been  created, 
piiucii)ally  by  the  celibate  misanthropy  of  tlie  patristic  and  medine- 
val  church.  But  I  have  to  preach  the  divineness  of  the  whole 
manhood,  and  am  content  to  be  called  a  Muscular  Christian,  or 
any  other  impertinent  name,  by  men  who  little  ilream  of  the  weak- 
ness of  character,  sickness  of  body,  and  misery  of  mind,  by  which 
I  have  bought  what  little  I  know  of  the  human  heart.  Howevei; 
there  is  no  good  in  talking  about  oneself. 

"  1  am  so  obliged  to  you  for  your  kindness  t*  ql'»-  Maurice.  ] 
hope  you  were  satisfied  wit  1  your  godson  He  y  •<  ••■C"v  jrocvl  boy. 
and  makes  us  very  happy." 


The    Watei'babies.  345 

The  "  Waterbabies '  came  out  this  year,  dedicated  "To  my 
youngest  son,  Grenville  Arthur,  and  to  all  other  good  little  boys  :" 

*'  Come  read  me  my  riddle,  eacli  good  little  man, 
If  you  cannot  read  it,  no  grown  up  folk  can." 

The  "  I'envoi,"  in  the  first  edition,  was  suppressed  in  the  secoii(\ 
Iiist  it  should  be  misunderstood  and  give  needless  offence  : — 

"  Hence  unbelieving  Sadducees, 
And  less  believing  Pharisees, 
With  dull  conventionalities ; 
And  leave  a  country  muse  at  ease 
To  play  at  leap-frog,  if  she  please, 
With  children  and  realities." 

Perhaps  it  was  the  last  book,  except  his  West  Indian  one,  "  Al 
Last,"  that  he  wrote  with  any  real  ease,  and  which  was  purely  a 
labor  of  love,  for  his  brain  was  getting  fatigued,  his  health  fluc- 
tuated, and  the  work  of  the  Professorship,  which  was  a  constant 
weight  on  his  mind,  wore  him  sadly. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

1864-5. 
Aged  45,  46. 

Tilt  CSS — Controvcrs)  witl  jjr.  Newman — Apologia — Jourr.e/  to  t'.ie  South  of 
France — Biarritz— Pau — An  Earthquake — Narbonne— Sermons  in  Londoi: 
and  at  Windsor — Enclosure  of  Eversley  Common — University  Sermons  a( 
Cambridge — Mr.  John  Stuart  Mill's  London  Committee — Letter  on  the  Trinity 
—Letter  on  Subscription — Luther  and  Demonology — Visit  of  Queen  Emma 
of  the  Sandwich  Islands  to  Eversley  Rectory  and  V/ellington  College — The 
Mammoth  on  Ivory — Death  of  King  Leopold — Lines  written  at  Windsor 
Castle. 

The  severe  illness  and  great  physical  depression  with  which  this 
year  began  were  a  bad  preparation  for  the  storm  of  controversy 
which  burst  upon  Mr.  Kingsley,  and  which  eventually  produced 
Dr.  Newman's  famous  "  Apologia  pro  vita  S7ia."  That  controversy 
is  before  the  world,  and  no  allusion  would  be  made  to  it  in  these 
p'lges,  but  from  the  fear  that  silence  might  be  misconstrued  into  a 
tacit  acknowledgment  of  defeat  on  the  main  question.  This  fact, 
however,  may  be  mentioned,  that  information  conveyed  to  Mr. 
Kingsley  that  Dr.  Newman  was  in  bad  health,  depressed,  and 
averse  from  polemical  discussion,  coupled  with  Dr.  Newman's  own 
words  in  the  early  part  of  the  correspondence,  in  which  he  seemed 
to  deprecate  controversy,  appealed  irresistibly  to  Mr.  Kingsley's 
consideration,  and  put  him  to  a  great  disadvantage  in  the  issue. 
Still  throughout  there  were  many  who  held  with  him — among  them 
some  personal  friends  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  Man)- 
private  letters,  too,  of  generous  sympathy  from  strangers  came  to 
cheei  him  on — some  from  laymen — some  from  clergymen — some 
even  from  vvorkingmen,  who  having  come  in  contact  with  the  teach 
ing  of  Roman  Catholic  priests,  knew  the  truth  of  Mr.  Kingsley's 
statements.  Last  but  not  least,  a  pamphlet  was  published  by  the 
Rev.  Frederick  Meyrick,  entitled,  "  But  is  not  Kingsley  right  aftei 
all  ?"     This  i^amphlet  was  never  answered. 

For  the  right  understanding  of  this  controversy,  it  cannot  be  toe 


Going  to  Spain  with  Mr.  Froude,         347 

strongly  insisted  upon,  that  it  was  for  truth  and  truth  only  that  Mr. 
Kingsley  craved  and  had  fought.  The  main  point  at  issue  was  not 
the  personal  integrity  of  Dr.  Newman,  but  the  question  whether 
the  Roman  Catholic  priesthood  are  encouraged  or  discouraged  to 
jiursue  "Truth  for  its  own  sake."  While  no  one  more  fully  ac- 
knowledged the  genius  and  power  of  his  opponent  than  Mr.  Kings- 
ley  himself,  or  was  more  ready  to  confess  that  he  had  "crossed 
swords  with  one  who  was  too  strong  for  him,"  yet  he  always  felt  that 
the  general  position  which  he  had  taken  up  against  the  policy  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  remained  unshaken. 

"It  was  his  righteous  indignation,"  says  Dean  Stanley,  "against 
what  seemed  to  him  the  glorification  of  a  tortuous  and  ambiguous 
policy,  which  betrayed  him  into  the  only  personal  controversy  in 
which  he  was  ever  entangled,  and  in  which,  matched  in  unequal 
conflict  with  the  most  subtle  and  dexterous  controversialist  of 
modern  times,  it  is  not  surprising  that  for  the  moment  he  was 
apparently  worsted,  whatever  we  may  think  of  the  ultimate  issues 
that  were  raised  in  the  struggle,  and  whatever  may  be  the  total 
results  of  our  experiences,  before  and  after,  on  the  main  question 
over  which  the  combat  was  fought — on  the  relation  of  the  human 
conscience  to  truth  or  to  authority." 

For  more  than  a  year  past  Mr.  Kingsley  had  been  suffering  from 
chronic  illness  increased  by  overwork  of  brain,  and  a  thorough 
rest  and  change  of  air  had  long  been  seriously  urged  upon  him  by 
his  kind  friend,  Sir  James  Clarke.  At  this  moment,  Mr.  P>oude, 
who  was  going  to  Spain  to  look  over  MSS.  in  connection  with  his 
i  Hstorical  work,  invited  him  to  go  with  him,  to  which  he  answers  : — 

*'  This  is  too  delightful.  I  had  meant  to  offer  myself  to  you,  but 
my  courage  failed  ;  but  when  you  propose  what  can  I  do  but  ac- 
cept ?  .  .  .  I  am  ready,  for  my  part,  not  only  to  go  to  Mad- 
rid, but  on  by  mail  to  Alicant,  and  then  by  steamer  to  Gibraltar, 
via  Carthagena  and  Malaga,  coming  home  by  sea.  I  have  alway 
felt  that  one  good  sea  voyage  would  add  ten  years  to  my  life.  A) 
my  friends  say,  go,  but  1  must  not  be  the  least  burden  to  you 
Remember  that  I  can  amuse  myself  in  any  hedge,  with  plant'  and 
insects  and  a  cigar,  and  tiiat  you  may  leave  me  anywliere,  anj 
long,  certain  that  1  shall  be  busy  and  happy.  I  cannot  say  how 
ihe  thought  of  going  has  put  fresh  life  into  me." 

On  tlie  23rd  of  March  he  stxrted  with  Mr.  Froude  for  Sfain,  but 
beinp,  ill  at  Biarri*<  he  did  net  ^o  over  the  border.      It  .vas  bis  first 


31.8  Charles  K  nigs  ley. 

/isit  to  Fiance,  of  which  his  impressions  are  given  in  his  letters  tc 

his  wife  and  children. 

Paris,  Sunday^  March  25,  3  P.M. 

*'  We  went  this  morning  to  the  Madeleine,  where  a  grand  cere- 
mony was  going  on,  consisting  of  a  high  priest  brushing  people  witl"' 
A.  handkerchief,  as  far  as  I  could  see.  Next,  to  Notre  Dame, 
where  old  women  were  adoring  the  Sacrament  in  a  '  tombeau ' 
dressed  up  with  cloth  and  darkness,  two  argand  burners  throwing 
light  on  it  above,  and  over  it  a  fold  of  white  drapery  exactly  in  the 
form  of  the  sacrificial  vitta  on  the  Greek  vases,  from  which  it  is 
probably  unconsciously  derived.  For  the  rest,  they  are  all  as  busy 
and  gay  to-day  as  on  any  other.  We  met  John  Lubbock  in  the 
street  going  off  to  examine  the  new  bone-caves  in  Dordogne.  .  .  ." 

Biarritz,  April,  1S64. 
"The  Basques  speak  a  lingo  utterly  different  from  all  European 
languages,  which  has  no  analogue,  and  must  have  come  from  a  dif- 
ferent stock  from  our  ancestors.  The  women  are  very  pretty — 
brown,  aquiline,  with  low  foreheads,  and  have  a  quaint  fashion  of 
doing  up  their  back  hair  in  a  gaudy  silk  handkerchief,  which  is 
cunningly  twisted  till  one  great  triangular  tail  stands  out  stiff  behind 
the  left  ear.  'I'his  is  a  great  art.  'I'he  old  ones  tie  their  whole 
heads  up  in  the  handkerchief  and  look  very  pretty,  but  browner 
ihan  apes  from  wearing  no  bonnets. 

*'  1  am  quite  in  love  with  these  Frenchmen.  They  are  so  charm 
mgly  civil  and  agreeable.  You  can  talk  to  any  and  all  classes 
as  equals.  But,  alas  !  I  have  fallen  among  English  at  the  tablt 
dhote.     .     .     . 

"  .  .  .  After  breakfast  we  generally  lounge  the  rocks  till  one. 
1  have  found  some  gigantic  skate  purses,  which  must  belong  to  a 
ray  twenty  feet  broatl ;  then  luncheon  ;  then  lounge  again,  sitting 
about  on  benches  and  rocks,  watching  the  grey  lizards  (  I  haven't 
^een  any  green  ones  yet),  and  smoking  penny  Government  cigars, 
which  are  very  good  ;  then  table  d'hote  at  six Yester- 
day we  hired  a  carriage  and  went  to  the  bar  of  the  Adour,  and  saw 
'.he  place  where  Hope  carried  the  Guards  across  and  made  abiidge 
cf  boats  in  the  face  of  15,000  French.  When  one  sees  such  things 
— aiid  1  shall  see  more — wV  dare  sneer  at  '  old  Peninsular  oUi- 
r.ers?'  To-day  1  was  looking  through  the  glass  at  the  Rhiine 
mountain,  which  Soult  entrenched  froui  top  to  bottom,  and  Well- 
ington stormed,  yard  by  yard,  with  20,000  men,  before  he  ou.d 
cross  the  Bidassoa  ;  and  to  have  taken  that  mountain  seemed  a 
deed  of  old  giants.  Behind  it  were  peaks  of  everlasting  snow, 
gleaming  white  m  the  glorious  sun,  and  beneath  it  the  shore  of  St. 
Sebastian  and  Fontarabia,  and  then  the  Spanish  hills,  fading  awajr 
U)  the  light  into  inliiiite  space  along  the  Biscayan  shore,     i  shaU 


To  his   Youngest  Boy.  349 

go  and  sit  there  the  whole  after.ioon.  We  drove  througli  Laridts 
yesterday,  too,  and  saw  the  pine  trees  hacked  for  turpentine,  and 
a  little  pot  hung  to  each,  with  clear  turpentine  running  in,  and  in 
the  tops  of  the  young  trees  great  social  nests  of  the  pitzocampo 
moth  caterpillar,  of  which  1  have  got  some  silk,  but  dared  notopf^n 
llie  nest,  for  their  hairs  are  deadly  poison,  as  the  old  Romans 
knew. 

to  his  youngest  boy. 

Pau. 

'  MV  DF.AR  LITTLE   MaN, 

"  I  was  quite  delighted  to  get  a  letter  from  you  so  nicely 
written.  Yesterday  1  went  by  the  railway  to  a  most  beautiful 
place,  where  I  am  sta_\ing  now.  A  town  witli  an  old  castle,  hun- 
dreds of  years  old,  where  tlie  great  King  Henry  IV.  of  France  was 
born,  and  his  cradle  is  there  still,  made  of  a  huge  tortoiseshell. 
Underneath  the  casde  are  beautiful  walks  and  woods — all  green, 
as  if  it  was  summer,  and  roses  and  flowers,  and  birds,  singing — but 
different  from  our  English  birds.  But  it  is  quite  summer  here  be- 
cause it  is  so  far  south.  Under  the  castle,  by  the  river,  are  frogs 
that  make  a  noise  like  a  rattle,  and  frogs  that  bark  like  toy-dogs, 
and  frogs  that  climb  up  trees,  and  even  up  the  window-panes — 
they  h.ave  suckers  on  their  feet,  and  are  quite  green  like  a  leaf. 
Far  away,  before  the  castle,  are  the  great  mountains,  ten  thousand 
feet  high,  covered  with  snow,  and  the  clouds  crawling  about  their 
tops.  1  am  going  to  see  them  to-morrow,  and  when  I  come  back 
I  will  tell  you.  But  I  have  been  out  to- night,  and  all  the  frogs  are 
croaking  still,  and  making  a  horrid  noise.  Mind  and  be  a  good 
boy  and  give  Baba  my  love.  Tell  George  I  am  coming  back  with 
a  great  beard  and  shall  frighten  him  out  of  his  wits.  There  is  a 
vulture  here  in  the  inn,  but  he  is  a  little  Egyptian  vulture,  not  like 
the:  great  vulture  I  saw  at  Bayonne.  Ask  mother  to  show  you  his 
picture  in  the  beginning  of  the  bird  book.  He  is  called  Neophra 
Kgyptiacus,  and  is  an  ugly  fellow,  who  eats  dead  horses  and  sheep. 
1  h  jre  is  his  picture. 

"  Your  own  Daddy, 

"  C.     KlNGSLEY." 

'•  1  have  taken  quite  a  new  turn,  and  my  nerve  and  strength 
1  3.ve  come  back,  from  three  days  in  the  Pyrenees.  What  I  have 
seen  I  cannot  tell  you.  Things  unspeakable  and  full  of  glory. 
Mountains  whose  herbage  is  box,  for  miles  and  thousands  of  feet, 
then  enormous  silver  firs  and  beech,  up  to  the  eternal  snow.  We 
went  up  to  Eaux-Chaudes — a  gigantic  Lynmouth,  with  rivers  break 
ing  out  of  limestone  caverns  hundreds  of  feet  over  our  heads. 
There  we  were  told  that  w^  must  take  horses  and  guides  up  to  the 
Plateau  of  Bioux  Artigues,  to  see  the  Pic  du  Midi,  which  we  ha'' 
been  seeing  for  twenty  eight  miles.     We  wouldn't,  and  drove  up  to 


350  Charles  Kings  ley. 

Gabas  to  lounge.  Cane  and  I  found  the  mountain  air  so  joiU 
that  we  lounged  Cn  for  an  hour — luckily  up  the  right  valley,  av*.l 
behold,  after  rochers  moutonnes,  and  moraines,  showing  the  enor- 
mous glaciers  which  are  extinct,  we  came  to  a  down,  which  we 
knew  by  inspiration  was  the  Plateau.  We  had  had  a  good  deal  of 
snow  going  up,  but  a  good  road  cut  through  it  for  timber  carls. 
We  climbed  three  hundred  feet  of  easy  down,  and  there  it  wa? 
right  in  front,  nine  thousand  feet  high,  with  the  -winte/  snow  at  the 
base — the  eternal  snow  holding  on  by  claws  and  teeth  where  it 
could  above.  I  could  have  looked  for  hours.  I  could  not  speak. 
I  cannot  understand  it  yet.  Right  and  left  were  other  eternal 
snow-peaks  ;  but  very  horrible.  Great  white  sheets  widi  black 
points  mingling  with  the  clouds,  of  a  dreariness  to  haunt  one's 
dreams.      I  don't  like  snow  mountains. 

"  The  Pic  above  is  jolly,  and  sunlit  and  honest.  The  flowers 
were  not  all  out — only  in  every  meadow  below  gentiana  verna,  of 
rhe  most  heavenly  azure,  and  huge  oxslijjs  :  but  I  have  got  some 
beautiful  things — a  primrose,  or  auricula,  among  others.  To-day  we 
saw  Eaux-Bonnes — the  rival  place,  which  the  Empress  is  bedizening 
with  roads  and  fancy  trees  and  streets  at  an  enormous  cost :  two  great 
eternal  snow-peaks  there,  but  not  so  striking.  Butterflies  glorious, 
even  now.  The  common  one,  the  great  Camberwell  beauty 
(almost  extinct  in  England),  a  huge  black  butterfly  with  white 
edge  ;  we  couldn't  catch  one.  The  day  before  yesterday,  at  Eaux- 
Chaudes,  two  bears  were  fired  at,  and  a  wolf  seen.  With  every 
flock  of  sheep  and  girls  are  one  or  two  enormous  mastiffs,  which 
could  eat  one,  and  do  bark  nastily.  But  when  the  children  call 
them  and  introduce  them  to  you  formally,  they  stand  to  be  patted, 
and  eat  out  of  your  hand  ;  they  are  great  darlings,  and  necessary 
against  bear  and  wolf.  So  we  did  everything  without  the  least 
mishap — nay,  with  glory — for  the  folk  were  astonished  at  our  get- 
ting to  the  Plateau  on  our  own  hook.  The  Mossoos  can't  walk, 
you  see,  and  think  it  an  awful  thing.  A  Wellington  College  boy 
would  trot  there  in  three-quarters  of  an  hour.  Last  night,  fom 
comble,  we  (or  rather  I)  did  something  extra — a  dear  little  sucking 
earthquake,  went  otf  crash — bang,  just  under  my  bed.  I  thought 
something  had  fallen  in  the  room  below,  though  I  wondeicd  why 
it  hove  my  bed  right  up.  Got  out  of  bed,  hearing  a  wom-'.n 
scrcau'.,  and  hearing  no  more,  guessed  it,  and  went  to  bed.  J I 
shook  the  whole  house  and  village  ;  but  no  on.e  minded.  '1  hey 
said  they  had  lots  of  young  earthquakes  there,  but  they  went  orf 
befjie  tliey  had  time  to  grow.  Lucky  for  the  place.  It  was  a  very 
queer  sensation,  and  made  a  most  awful  noise." 

Narbonnk. 

"We  were  yesterday  at  Carcassonne,  a  fortified  place,  where 
walls  were  built  by  Roman,  Visigoth,   Miissulm;in,   Romane  (;./ 


Carcassonne  and  Nismcs.  351 

Albigense)  and  then  by  French  kings.  Such  a  remnant  of  the  old 
times  as  I  have  dreamed  of — now  being  all  restored  by  M.  Viollet- 
le-Duc,  at  the  expense  of  Government — with  its  wonderful  church 
of  St.  Nazaire,  where  Roman  Corinthian  capitals  are  used  by  the 
romance  people — 9-10  century.  We  went  down  into  real  dun- 
geons of  the  Inquisition,  and  saw  real  chains  and  torture  ring?, 
and  breathed  more  freely  when  we  came  up  into  the  air,  and  tlio 
guide  pointed  to  the  Pyrenees  and  said  '//  tiy  a  point  de  dhnom 

"  I  shall  never  forget  that  place.  Narbonne  is  very  curious, 
once  the  old  Roman  capital,  then  the  Albigense.  Towers,  Ca- 
thedral, Archbishop's  palace — all  wonderful.  Whole  quarries  of 
Roman  remains.  The  waRs,  built  by  Francis  I.,  who  demolished 
the  old  Roman  and  Gothic  walls,  are  a  museum  of  antiquities  in 
themselves.  If  you  want  to  have  a  souvenir  of  Narbonne,  read  in 
my  lectures  Sidonius's  account  of  Theodoric  the  Visigoth  (not 
Dietrich  the  Amal)  and  his  court  here.  His  palace  is  long  gone. 
It  probably  stood  where  the  Archbishop's  palace  does  now — oppo- 
site my  window     .     .     .     ." 

NiSMES, 

".  .  .  .  But  what  a  country  they  have  made  of  it,  these 
brave  French  !  P^or  one  hundred  miles  yesterday,  what  had  been 
poor  limestone  plain  was  a  garden.  A  scrap  or  two  I  saw  of  the 
origmal  vegetation  a  donkey  would  have  starved  on.  But  they 
have  cleared  it  all  off  for  ages,  ever  since  the  Roman  times,  and  it 
is  one  sea  of  vines,  with  olive,  fig,  and  mulberry  planted  among 
them.  Where  there  is  a  hill  it  is  exactly  like  the  photographs  of 
the  Holy  Land  and  Nazareth — limestone  walls  with  nothing  but 
vineyards  and  grey  olives  planted  in  them,  and  raised  stone  paths 
about  them.  The  only  green  thing — for  the  soil  is  red,  and  the 
vines  are  only  sprouting — is  here  and  there  a  field  of  the  Roman 
plant,  lucerne,  as  high  as  one's  knee  already.  I  came  by  Beziers, 
where  the  Inquisitor  cried,  '  Kill  them  all,  God  will  know  his  own,' 
and  they  shut  them  into  the  Madelaine  and  killed  them  all — 
Catholics  as  well  as  Albigenses,  till  there  was  not  a  soul  alive  in 
Beziers,  and  the  bones  are  there  to  this  day. 

"  But  this  land  is  beautiful — as  they  say,  '  Si  Dieu  venait  encore 
stir  la  ferre^  il  vicndrait  demeurer  d  Beziers,'  and,  indeed  it  is  just 
like,  as  I  have  said,  the  Holy  Land.  Then  we  came  to  immense 
fiats — still  in  vine  and  olive,  and  then  to  sand  hills,  and  then  ui)on 
the  tideless  shore  broke  the  blue  Mediterranean,  with  the  long 
lateen  sails,  as  in  pictures.  It  was  a  wonderful  feeling  to  a  scholar 
to  see  the  'schoolboy's  sea'  for  the  first  time,  and  so  perfectly,  in 
a  glory  of  sunshine  and  blue  ripple.  We  ran  literally  through  it  for 
miles  between  Agde  and  Cette — tall  asphodel  grf)wing  v^  th(r  sai  d 
hills,  and  great  white  iris  and  vines.  .     ." 


352  Charles  Kings  ley. 

"My  first  impression  of  che  Pont  du  Gard  was  one  of  simplt 
fear.  'It  was  so  liigh  that  it  was  dreadful,'  as  Ezekiel  sa^'s.  Then 
I  said,  again  ind  again,  '  A  great  people  and  a  st-.ong.  There 
hath  been  none  like  before  them,  nor  shall  be  again,  foi  many 
generations.'  As,  after  fifteen  miles  of  the  sea  of  mulberry,  olive, 
and  vine,  dreary  from  its  very  artificial  perfection,  we  turned  the 
corner  of  the  limestone  glen,  and  over  the  deep  blue  rock- pool, 
saw  that  thitig  hanging  between  earth  and  heaven,  the  blue  sky 
and  gieen  woods  showing  through  its  bright  yellow  arches,  and  all 
to  carry  a  cubic  yard  of  water  to  Nismes,  twenty  miles  off,  for 
public  baths  and  sham  sea-fights  {'■  Jiau-maelicas')  in  the  amphi- 
theatre, which  even  Charlemagne,  when  he  burnt  the  Moors  out 
of  it,  could  not  destroy. — Then  I  felt  the  brute  greatness  of  that  Ro- 
man people  ;  and  an  awe  fell  upon  me  as  it  may  have  fallen  on  poor 
Croc,  the  Rook,  king  of  the  Alemans — but  that  is  a  long  story, — 
when  he  came  down  and  tried  to  destroy  this  city  of  the  seven  hills, 
and  ended  in  being  shown  about  in  an  iron  cage  as  T/ie  Rook.  But 
I  doubt  not  when  he  and  his  wild  Alemans  came  down  to  the  Pont 
du  Gard  they  said  it  was  the  work  of  dwarfs — of  the  devil?  We 
walked  up  to  the  top,  through  groves  of  Ilex,  Smilax,  and  Coronella 
(the  first  time  I  have  seen  it  growing),  and  then  we  walked  across 
on  the  top.  A  false  step,  and  one  was  a  hundred  feet  down,  but 
that  is  not  my  line.  Still,  if  any  one  is  giddy,  he  had  better  not 
try  it.  The  masonry  is  wonderful,  and  instead  of  employing  the 
mountain  limestone  of  the  hills,  they  haive  brought  the  most  splen- 
did Bath  oolite  from  the  hills  opposite.  There  are  the  marks  cut 
by  tlie  old  fellows — horse-hoofs,  hatchets,  initials,  &c.,  as  fresh  as 
paint.  The  Emperor  has  had  it  all  repaired  from  the  same  quarries, 
stone  for  stone.  Now,  after  1600  years,  they  are  going  to  bring 
the  same  water  into  Nismes  by  it " 

"  I  stopped  at  Nismes,  and  begin  again  at  Avignon.  We  saw 
to-day  the  most  wonderful  Roman  remains.  I  have  brought  back 
a  little  book  of  photographs.  But  the  remarkable  thing  was  the 
Roman  ladies'  baths  in  a  fountain  bursting  up  out  of  the  rock, 
where,  under  colonnades,  they  walked  about,  in  or  out  of  the  water 
as  they  chose.  All  is  standing,  and  could  be  used  to-morrow,  if 
the  prudery  of  the  priests  allowed  it.  Honor  to  those  Romans — 
with  all  their  sins,  they  were  the  cleanest  people  the  world  ha-s  ever 
seen.     But  to  tell  you  all  I  saw  at  Nismes  would  take  a  book. 

Perhaps  it  will  make  one  some  day Good-bye.      1 

shall  write  again  to-morrow  from  this,  the  most  wonderful  place  I 
have  yet  seen." 

Avignon,  Sunday, 

"We  are  still  here  under  the  shadow  of  that  terrible  fortresi 
which  the  Holy  Fathers  of  mankind  erected  to  show  m  jn  their  idea 
of  palerniiy.      A  dieadful  dungeon  on  a  rock.     The  ,  istest  pir  of 


To  his   Youngest  Daughter.  353 

stone  I  ever  saw.  Men  asked  for  bread,  and  they  gave  a  stone, 
most  literallv.  I  have  seen  La  Tour  de  la  Glaciere,  famous  for  its 
horrors  of  1793,  but  did  not  care  to  enter.  The  siglit  here  are  iht 
walls — very  nearly  perfect,  and  being  all  restored  by  Viollet-le-Dnc, 
under  government " 

TO   HIS   YOUNGEST  DAUGHTER. 

BlARRirz. 

"  My  Darling  Mary, 

"  I  am  going  to  write  you  a  long  letter  about  all  sorts  of  things 
And  first,  this  place  is  full  of  the  prettiest  children  I  ever  saw,  ver) 
like  English,  but  with  dark  hair  and  eyes,  and  none  of  them  look 
poor  or  ragged  ;  but  so  nicely  dressed,  with  striped  stockings,  whi(  h 
they  knit  themselves,  and  Basque  shoes,  made  of  canvas,  worked 
with  red  and  purple  worsted.  There  is  a  little  girl  here  six  years 
old,  a  chemist's  daughter,  who  knits  all  her  own  woollen  stockings. 
Mrs.  ****  has  given  her  Mademoiselle  Tili,  and  she  has  learnt 
it  all  by  heart,  and  we  have  great  fun  making  her  say  it.  All  the 
children  go  to  a  school  kept  by  nuns  ;  and  I  am  sure  the  poor  nuns 
are  very  kind  to  them,  for  they  laugh  and  romp  it  seems  to  me  all 
da.y  long.  In  summer  most  of  them  wear  no  shoes  or  stockings^ 
for  they  do  not  want  them  ;  but  in  winter  they  are  wrapped  up 
warm  ;  and  I  have  not  seen  one  ragged  child  or  tramp,  or  any  one 
who  looks  miserable.  They  never  wear  any  bonnets.  The  little 
babies  wear  a  white  cap,  and  the  children  a  woollen  cap  with 
pretty  colors,  and  the  girls  a  smart  handkerchief  on  their  back  hair, 
and  the  boys  and  men  wear  blue  and  scarlet  caps  like  Scotchmen, 
just  the  shape  of  mushrooms,  and  a  red  sash. 

"The  oxen  here  are  quite  yellow,  and  so  gentle  and  wise,  the 
men  make  them  do  exactly  what  they  like.  I  will  draw  you  an  ox 
cart  when  I  come  home.  The  banks  here  are  covered  with  enor- 
mous canes,  as  high  as  the  eaves  of  our  house.  They  tie  one  of 
these  to  a  fir  pole,  and  make  a  huge  long  rod,  and  then  go  and  sit 
on  the  rocks  and  fish  for  doradas,  which  are  fish  with  gilt  heads. 
'I'here  is  an  old  gentleman  in  a  scarlet  blouse  and  blue  mushroom 
just  gone  down  to  fish  and  1  am  going  to  look  at  him.  There  are 
the  most  lovely  sweet  smelling  jiurple  pinks  on  the  rocks  here,  and 
the  woods  are  full  of  asphodel,  great  lilies,  four  feet  high,  with  white 
ind  purple  flowers.  1  saw  the  wood  yesterday  where  the  dreadful 
fight  was  between  the  French  and  English — and  over  the  place 
where  all  the  brave  men  lay  buried  grew  one  great  flower-bed  of 
asphodel.  So  they  '  slept  in  the  meads  of  asphodel,'  like  the  old 
Greek  heroes  in  Homer.  There  were  great  '  lords  and  ladies,' 
(arums)  there,  growing  in  the  bank,  twice  as  big  as  ours,  and  not 
red,  but  white  and  primrose — most  beautiful.  But  you  cannot 
think  how  beautiful  the  commons  are,  they  are  like  flower  gardens, 
(iiolden  with  furze,  and  white  with  potc-.tilla,  and  crimson  wit> 
2i 


354  Charles  Kings  ley. 

sweet   smellintj  Daphne,  and  blue  with  the  most  wonderful  blu« 
flower  which  grows  everywhere.     I  have  dried  them  all. 

"Tell  your  darling  mother  I  am  quite  well,  and  will  write  to  hei 
to-morrow.  Tell  her  1  met  last  night  at  dinner  a  Comtesse  de  M. 
{fi'ee  D — ),  the  most  charming  old  Scotch  Frenchwoman,  with  snow- 
white  powdered  hair,  and  I  drew  her  portrait  for  her,  There^  that 
is  all  I  have  to  say.  Tell  Grenville  they  have  made  a  tunnel  under 
the  battle-field,  for  the  railroad  to  go  into  Spain,  and  that  on  the 
top  of  the  tunnel  there  is  a  shaft,  and  a  huge  wheel,  to  pump  aii 
into  the  tunnel,  and  that  1  will  bring  him  home  a  scarlet  Basque 
cap,  and  you  and  Rose  Basque  shoes     .... 

"  Your  Own  Daddy." 

He  now  returned  to  work  and  letters,  and  writes  to  Mr, 
Maurice — 

EvERSLEY,  Friday. 

"  I  have  just  read  your  letter  to  the  Bishop  of  London.  You 
have  struck  at  the  root  of  the  matter  in  every  page.  For  me,  I  am 
startled  by  iiearing  a  man  talk  of  the  eternity  of  hell-fire,  who  be- 
lieves the  Athanasian  Creed,  that  there  is  but  one  Eternal.  If  so, 
then  this  fire  is  the  fire  of  God — yea,  is  God  himself,  whom  the 
Scriptures  formally  identify  with  that  fire.  But  if  so,  it  must  be  a 
fire  of  purification,  not  of  mere  useless  torment ;  it  must  be  a 
spiritual  and  not  a  physical  fire,  and  its  eternity  must  be  a  good,  a 
blessed,  an  ever  useful  one ;  and  amenable  to  the  laws  which  God 
has  revealed  concerning  the  rest  of  his  attributes,  and  f^specially  to 
the  great  law  'when  the  wicked  man  turneth  he  shall  save  his  soul 
alive.'  This  eternal  law  no  metaphors  of  fire  and  brimstone  can 
abrogate.  But  I  have  much  more  to  say  on  all  this ;  only  I  am 
not  well  enough  to  formalise  it ;  so  I  nmst  content  myself,  as  I 
have  for  some  time  past,  with  preaching  Him  whom  you  bid  me 
preach,  sure  that  if  I  can  show  people  His  light,  that  of  itself  will 
dissipate  their  darkness. 

"  1  am  come  back  (from  France)  better,  but  not  well,  and  un 
able  to  take  any  mental  exertion." 

Before  going  abroad  he  had  given  a  lecture  at  Aldershot  Camp 
on  the  "  Study  of  History,"  and  preached  at  Whitehall  for  the  Con- 
sumptive Hospital,  and  on  his  return  had  preached  one  of  his  finest 
Eversley  sermons,  "  Ezekiel's  Vision,"  before  the  Queen  at  Wind- 
sor Castle,  and  a  remarkable  one  on  "  the  Wages  of  Sin  is  Death," 
at  the  Chupel  Royal,  St.  James's.  Those  who  accused  him  ol 
preaching  a  "soft"  gospel  and  an  "indulgent"  God,  would  have 
believed  otherwise  if  they  had  been   present  and   had  heard  his 


University  Sei'viotis  on  David.  355 

burning  words,  and  watched  the  fiery  earnestness  with  which  thei 
and  always  he  addressed  a  London  congregation. 

This  )-ear  the  proposal  for  the  enclosure  of  Eversley  Cominoi: 
land  was  decided  on,  and  was  a  real  distress  to  him.  He  regretted 
it  not  only  from  a  mere  aesthetic  point  of  view,  feeling  that  if  it 
were  carried  out  the  characteristic  beauty  of  the  parish  he  loved  s( 
well  would  be  gone  :  but  for  the  sake  of  the  poor  man  who  k(;[)l 
his  geese  and  cut  his  turf  at  his  own  will ;  the  loss  too  of  the 
cricket  ground  where  the  men  and  b^ys  had  played  for  years, 
vexed  him.  "  Eversley  will  no  longer  be  the  same  Eversley  to 
me."     It  was  a  wound  to  his  heart  which  never  healed. 

He  was  busy  in  the  autumn  preparing  his  university  sermons  on 
David,  having  been  selected  as  one  of  the  preachers  at  Cambridge 
for  1865,  and  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Maurice  he  speaks  of  his  work  : 

"  I  have  read  with  delight  your  words  in  '  Macmillan '  on  the 
Pope's  letter.  I  am  sure  that  you  are  right,  and  that  the  most  im- 
portant lesson  to  be  drawn  from  it  is  the  one  which  you  point  out.  It 
is  tJiat  longing  for  unity  which  he  has  outraged — the  aspiration  which 
iS  working,  I  verily  believe,  in  all  thinking  hearts,  which  one  thrusts 
away  fiercely  at  times  as  impossible  and  a  phantom,  and  firids  one- 
self at  once  so  much  meaner,  more  worldly,  more  careless  of  every- 
thing worth  having,  that  one  has  to  go  back  again  to  the  old 
dream. 

"  But  wb.at  I  feel  you  have  taught  me,  and  which  is  invaluable  to 
me  in  writing  these  University  sermons,  from  which  God  send  me 
good  deliverance,  is,  that  we  need  not  make  the  unity  from  doctrines 
or  systems,  but  preach  the  fact  that  the  unity  is  made  by  and  in  the 
perpetual  government  of  the  Living  Christ. 

"And  I  do  see,  that  the  mediseval  clerg}'  preached  that,  con- 
fusedly of  course,  but  with  a  clearness  and  strength  to  which  neither 
we  nor  the  modern  Papists  have  attained.  They  preach  their  own 
kingdom,  we  a  scheme  of  salvation.  From  both  I  take  refuge 
more  and  more  where  you  have  taught  me  to  go — to  the  plain  words 
of  Scrii)ture,  as  interpreting  the  facts  about  me. 

"  Wish  me  well  through  these  sermons.  They  lie  heavy  on  my 
sinful  soul." 

When  the  Christmas  vacation  was  over  he  went  up  to  Cambridge 
to  give  these  sermons.  St.  Mary's  was  crowded  with  undergradu- 
ates long  before  the  services  began,  and  he  felt  the  responsibility  a 
heavy  one.  The  subject  chosen  was  "  David,"  and  the  series  was 
Iiuhlished  under  that  title. 


356  Char  Us  Kingsley. 

The  letters  of  1865  that  have  been  recovered  are  few.  He  wa! 
so  broken  in  strength,  that  to  get  through  the  duties  of  his  professor- 
ship and  his  parish  was  as  much,  nay,  more  than  he  could  manage, 
and  in  the  summer  he  was  forced  to  leave  home  with  his  fai.iily 
for  three  months'  rest,  and  settle  quietly  on  the  coast  of  NoifoU.. 

TO   TOM    HUGHES,    ESQ. 

EVERSLEY,  May  21,  1865. 

"  I  have  delayed  writing  to  you.  First,  I  have  had  a  tragedy  on 
hand  ;  next,  I  wanted  to  tell  you  the  end  of  it.  Henry  Erskine,  as 
you  I  suppose  know,  is  dead  at  the  age  of  forty-nine.  We  buried 
him  to-day  ;  the  father  hardly  cold  in  the  ground.  His  death  is  to 
me  a  great  sorrow — a  gap  in  my  life  which  I  feel  and  cannot  fill.  A 
nobler,  honester,  kindlier  man  never  lived,  or  one  more  regretted 
by  men  of  all  kinds  who  knew  his  private  worth.  Such  a  death  as 
his  draws  one  closer  to  the  men  of  our  own  age  whom  one  has  still 
left,  and  among  others  to  you. 

"  I  am  delighted  to  see  you  on  Mill's  committee  at  Maurice's 
side.  You  have  done  a  good  deal  of  good  work,  but  never  better 
than  that.  I  wish  I  were  a  Westminster  elector  for  the  time,  that 
I  might  work  for  him  and  with  you.  I  am  much  struck  with  his 
committee-list  in  to-day's  'Times,'  so  many  men  of  different  opinions 
and  classes,  whom  one  knew  and  valued  for  different  things,  finding 

a  common  cause  in  Mill,  R C ,  and  Holyoake,  side  by  side. 

I  do  hope  you  will  succeed.  I  am  just  writing  to  Mill  at  Avignon 
anent  this  noble  book  of  his  on  Sir  W.  Hamilton,  and  shall  tell  him 
of  many  things  which  ought  to  please  him.  I  answered  your  good 
friend  as  kindly  as  I  could,  but  as  I  have  had  to  answer  dozens— 
that  the  doctors  forbid  my  preaching.  I  gave  my  necessary  White- 
hall sermon  to  the  Consumptive  Hospital  as  to  an  old  and  dear 
friend ;  but  I  have  refused  all  others.  I  am  getting  better  after 
fifteen  months  of  illness,  and  1  hope  to  be  of  some  use  again  some 
day  ;  a  sadder  and  a  wiser  man,  the  former,  at  least,  I  grow  every 
year.  I  catch  a  trout  now  and  then  out  of  my  ponds  (I  am  too 
weak  for  a  day's  fishing,  and  the  doctors  have  absolutely  forbidden 
me  my  salmon).  I  have  had  one  or  two  this  year,  of  three  and  two 
pounds,  and  a  brace  to-day,  near  one  pound  each,  so  I  am  not  left, 
troutless " 

TO    REV.   F.  D.   MAURICE. 

EvERSLEY,  May  iS. 

*'  Youl  letter  comforted  me,  for  (strange  as  it  may  seem  for  nie 
to  say  so)  the  oidy  thing  1  really  caie  for — the  only  thing  which 
gives  me  comfcwt — is  theology,  in  the  strict  sense ;  though  God 


The  Doctrine  of  the   Trinity.  357 

knows  I  know  little  enough  about  it.  I  wish  one  thing — that  you 
would  define  for  me  what  you  meai.  by  being  '  baptised  into  a  name.' 
The  preposition  in  its  transcendental  sense  puzzles  me,  and  others 
'ikewise.  I  sometimes  seem  to  grasp  it,  and  sometimes  again  lose 
it,  from  tlie  very  unrealistic  turn  of  mind  which  1  have  in  common 
with  this  generation.  I  want  your  definition  (or  translation  of  the 
fijrmula  into  words  of  this  generation)  that  I  may  tell  them  some- 
wl.a    as  to  what  you  mean. 

"  As  to  the  Trinity  I  do  understand  you.  You  first  taught  me 
that  the  doctrine  was  a.  live  thing,  and  not  a  mere  fornmla  to  be 
swallowed  by  the  undigesting  reason,  and  from  the  time  that  I  learnt 
from  you  that  a  Father  meant  a  real  Father,  a  Son  a  real  Son,  and 
a  Holy  Spirit  a  real  Spirit,  who  was  really  good  and  holy,  I  have 
been  able  to  draw  all  sorts  of  i)ractical  lessons  from  it  in  the  pulpit, 
and  ground  all  my  morality,  and  a  great  deal  of  my  natural  philoso- 
phy upon  it,  and  shall  do  so  more.  The  procession  of  the  Spirit 
:rom  the  Father  and  the  Son,  for  instance,  is  most  practically  im 
portant  to  me.  If  the  Spirit  proceeds  only  from  the  Father,  the 
whole  theorem  of  the  Trinity,  as  well  as  its  practical  results,  fall 
to  pieces  to  my  mind.  I  don't  mean  that  good  men  in  the  Greek 
Church  are  not  better  than  I.  On  the  contrary,  I  believe  that 
every  good  man  therein  believes  in  the  procession  from  both  Father 
and  Son,  whether  he  thinks  that  he  does  or  not.  But  in  this  case, 
as  in  others,  one  has  extreme  difficulty  in  remembering,  and  still 
more  in  making  others  understand,  that  a  man  may  believe  the 
facts  which  the  doctrine  connotes  without  believing  the  doctrine, 
just  as  he  may  believe  that  a  horse  is  a  horse,  for  every  practical 
purpose,  though  he  may  have  been  mistaught  to  call  it  a  cow.  It 
is  this  slavery  to  formulce — this  mistaking  of  words  for  conceptions, 
and  then  again  of  conceptions  for  the  facts,  which  seems  our  presert 
curse ;  and  how  much  of  it  do  we  not  owe  to  the  Calvinists,  who 
laid  again  on  our  necks  the  yoke  of  conceptions  which  we  were 
bursting  at  the  Reformation,  because  neither  we  nor  our  fathers 
could  bear  it.  It  was  this  which  made  me  reject  Mansell  and 
Hamilton's  'The  Absolute'  and  'The  Infinite,'  and  say,  'If  these 
nu  n's  arguments  are  good  for  anything,  they  prove  that  either  i. 
God  is  not  The  Absolute  and  The  Infinite,  as  they  assert  He  is  ;  or, 
2.  That  there  is  no  God.'  What  they  are  meant  to  prove  really 
being,  that  we  cannot  conceive  what  we  cannot  conceive,  which  is 
not  new,  though  true  ;  and  also  in  Mansell's,  case,  that  though  wo 
cannot  conceive  an  ^//conditional  God,  we  can  easily  enough  con 
coive  an  ///-conditioned  one,  which,  again,  though  true,  s  not  new. 
It  was  therefore  with  great  comfort  that  I  found  Mill,  in  his  chap- 
ter iv.,  take  exactly  the  same  line  against  those  words ;  only,  of 
course,  with  infinitely  more  force  and  clearness. 

"I  am  taking  a  regrlar  course  of  metaphysic,  and  so  forth,  as  3 
tonic  after  the  long  debauchery  of  fiction- writing.     I  say  to  you, 


35^  diaries  Kings  ley. 

once  for  all,  Have  patience  with  me,  and  1  will  i)ay  thee — not  all, 
but  a  little,  and  I  know  you  will  not  take  me  by  the  throat.  If  you 
did,  you  would  break  my  heart ;  which  could  be  much  more  easily 
broken  than  people  think.  If  a  man  is  intensely  in  earnest  after 
truth,  be  it  what  it  may,  and  also  intensely  disgusted  with  his  own 
laziness,  worldliness,  and  sensuality,  his  heart  is  not  difficult  to 
l;tcak, 

"  Poor  Spring  Rice  !  *  That  was  a  noble  gentleman,  and  had 
he  had  health,  might  have  been  a  noble  statesman.  I  never  met  a 
more  single  eye.  '  I>ook  to  the  single  eye  in  others,'  he  once  said 
to  me,  '  I  judge  of  every  man  by  the  first  question  I  ask  him. 
Has  he  an  arriere pensee  or  not  ?  Does  he  answer  what  he  knows, 
simply,  or  what  he  "thinks  will  do?"  If  the  former,  he  is  my 
friend  henceforth  ;  if  the  latter,  he  is  nothing  to  me.' 

"I  don't  quite  understand  one  point  in  your  letter.  You  say, 
'The  Articles  were  not  intended  to  bind  men's  thoughts  or  con- 
sciences ! '  Now,  I  can't  help  feeling  that  when  they  assert  a 
proposition,  e.g..,  the  Trinity,  they  assert  that  that  and  nothing 
else  on  that  matter  is  true,  and  so  bind  thought ;  and  that  they 
require  me  to  swear  that  I  believe  it  so,  and  so  bind  my  con- 
science. 

"  In  the  case  where  they  condemn  an  error,  it  seems  to  me  quite 
different.  There  they  proscribe  07ie  form  of  thought,  and  leave  all 
others  open  by  implication,  binding  neither  thought  nor  conscience. 
Thus  the  Tract  XC.  argument  was  quite  fair — if  its  author  coula 
have  used  it  fairly.  The  Romish  doctrine  of  Purgatory  is  false  ; 
but  denying  that  does  not  forbid  me  to  believe  other  doctrines  of 
Purgatory  to  be  true,  and  to  speculate  freely  on  the  future  state. 
So  tliat  what  you  say  applies  clearly  (to  me)  to  the  cases  in  which 
the  Articles  deny.  It  applies  also  to  all  cases  in  which  the  Articles 
do  not  affirm,  e.g..,  endless  torture. 

"  Also  to  all  in  which  it  uses  words  without  defining  them,  e.g.., 
the  Article  on  Predestination,  which  I  sign  in  what  I  conceive  to 
be  the  Hteral  sense  not  only  of  it,  but  of  the  corresponding  passage 
in  St.  Paul,  without  believing  one  word  of  the  Calvinistic  theory,  oj 
that  St.  Paul  was  speaking  of  the  future  state  at  all. 

"But  how  does  your  theorem  api)ly  where  the  Articles  not  onlv 
HiscTt,  but  define  ?     That  I  want  to  understand. 

"  For  myself,  I  can  sign  the  Articles  in  their  literal  sense  tot^ 
(orde,  and  subscription  is  no  bondage  to  me,  and  so  I  am  sure  can 
you.  But  all  I  demand  is,  that,  in  signing  the  Articles,  I  shall  be 
understood  to  sign  them  and  nothing  more  ;  that  I  do  not  sign  any 
thing  beyond  the  words,  and  demand  the  right  to  put  my  construc- 
tion on  the  words,  answerable  only  to  God  and  my  conscience 
and  refusing  to  accept  any  sense  of  the  words,  however  poi)ulai 


The  late  Right  Honoiable  Stephen  Spring  Rice. 


Subscription  to  the  Articles.  35Q 

and  venerable,  unless  I  choose.  In  practice,  Gorham  and  Pusey 
both  do  this,  and  nothing  else,  whenever  it  suits  them.  I  demand 
that  I  shall  have  just  \\\t  same  liberty  as  they,  and  no  more. 

"  But  the  world  at  large  uses  a  very  powerful,  though  worthless, 
argument.  Lord  ****  answered,  when  I  asked  him  why  the 
Articles  had  not  defined  inspiration,  'Because  they  never  expected 
tiat  men  would  arise  heretics  enough  to  deny  it  ! '  I  had  to  rei>ly 
—and  I  think  convinced  him — that  that  line  of  thought  would  dc- 
s\-oy  all  worth  in  formula,  by  making  signing  mean,  *I  sign  the 
XXXIX.  Articles,  and  as  many  more  as  the  Church  has  forgotten 
tc,  or  may  have  need  to,  put  in.' 

"  But  tiie  mob,  whose  superstitions  are  the  very  cosmogony  of 
their  creed,  would  think  that  argument  conclusive,  and  say, — of 
course,  you  are  expected  to  believe,  over  and  above,  such  things  as 
endless  torture,  verbal  dictation,  &c.,  which  are  more  of  the  es- 
sence of  Christianity  than  the  creeds  them^lves,  or  the  Being  of  a 
God. 

"  Meanwhile,  each  would  make  a  reservation — the  '  Evangelical 
of  the  Calvinist  School  would  say  in  his  heart — and  of  course 
^though  I  daren't  say  so)  every  man  is  expected  to  believe  conver- 
sion, even  though  not  mentioned ;  and  the  Romanist,  of  course 
every  man  must  believe  in  the  Pope,  though  not  mentioned  ;  and 
the  reigning  superstition,  not  the  formulae  actually  signed,  becomes 
the  test  of  faith. 

"  But  how  we  are  to  better  this  by  doing  away  with  subscrii^tion, 
I  don't  see  yet. 

"As  long  as  the  Articles  stand,  and  as  long  as  they  are  in- 
terpreted by  lawyers  only,  who  will  ask  sternly,  '  Is  it  in  the 
bond  ? '  and  nothing  else,  1  see  hope  for  freedom  and  safety.  If 
subscrijition  was  done  away,  every  man  would  either  teach  what 
was  right  in  his  own  eyes — which  would  be  somewhat  confus- 
ing— or  he  would  have  to  be  controlled  by  a  body,  not  of  written 
words,  but  of  thinking  men.     From  whom  may  my  Lord  deliver 


me 


"  For  as  soon  as  any  body  of  men,  however  venerable,  have  the 
power  given  them  to  dictate  to  me  what  I  shall  think  and  preach,. 
I  shall  answer — my  compact  with  the  Church  of  England  is  over. 
I  swore  to  the   Articles,  and  not   to  you.     I   have  preached  my 

last  sermon  for  you There  is  my  living,  give  it  (c 

Tvhom  you  will;  I  wipe  off  the  dust  of  my  feet  against  you,  and  go 
fi  ee. 

"  And  therefore  I  do  not  care  for  the  *  *  *  *  and  *  *  *  *  trying  to 
make  the  Articles  a  tyranny,  by  making  the.n  talk  poi)ular  super- 
stition, because  I  have  faith  sufficient  in  the  honesty  and  dialectic  of 
an  English  lay  lawyo-  to  protect  me  against  their  devices  ;  and,  for 
the  sake  of  freedom,  cannot  cast  in  my  lot  with  *  *  *  *,  dearly  as  J 
love  him. 


360  Charles  Kingsley. 

*'  Now,    do  tell   me  whether  this  seems  to  you  sense  or  noiv 
sense.     .     .     ." 

That  his  mind  was  deeply  exercised  at  times,  the  following  ex 
trict  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Maurice  shows  :  — 

*'  1  feel  a  capacity  of  drifting  to  sea  in  me  which  makes  me  cling 
li-^rvously  to  any  little  anchor,  like  subscrii)tion.  I  feel  glad  of 
aught  that  says  to  me,  '  You  must  teach  this  and  nothing  else ;  you 
must  not  run  riot  in  your  own  dreams  !'...." 

This  may  be  a  comfort  to  troubled  souls  when  they  remember  the 
calm  assured  faith  with  which  he  faced  life  and  death,  and  when 
standing  on  the  very  threshold  of  the  next  world,  was  heard  repeat- 
ing again  and  again,  "  It  is  all  right — all  under  rule."  Perhaps  his 
dearly  loved  George  Fox's  words  best  express  the  habitual  attitude 
of  his  heart  and  mind  for  thirty  years.  "  And  I  saw  that  there  was 
an  Ocean  of  Darkness  and  Death  :  but  an  infinite  Ocean  of  Light 
and  Love  flowed  over  the  Ocean  of  Darkness :  and  in  that  I  saw 
the  infinite  Love  of  God." — {George  Fox's  Journal.) 

TO    REV.    F.    D.    MAURICE. 

EvERSLEY,  Saturday. 

"  Many  thanks  for  your  letter.  I  am  very  sorry  I  differ  from  you 
about  Savonarola.  It  seems  to  me  that  his  protest  for  the  kingdom 
of  God  and  against  sin  was  little  worth,  and  came  to  nought,  just 
because  it  was  from  the  merely  negative  inhuman  monks'  stand 
point  of  the  13th  century  ;  that  he  would  at  best  have  got  the  world 
back  to  St.  Bernard's  time,  to  begin  all  over  again,  and  end  just 
where  Savonarola  had  found  them.  Centuries  of  teaching  such  as 
his  had  ended  in  leaving  Italy  a  hell  on  earth  ;  new  medicine  was 
needed,  which  no  monk  could  give.  A  similar  case,  it  seems  to  me, 
\s,  that  of  the  poor  Port-royalists.  They  tried  to  habilitate  the  monk- 
i  leal  of  righteousness.  'I'hey  were  civilized  off  the  face  of  the  earth; 
;'S  was  poor  Savonarola,  by  men  worse  than  themselves,  but  more 
(jumane,  with  wider  (though  shallower)  notions  of  what  man  and  the 
universe  meaiit. 

"As  for  Luther,  I  am  very  sorry  to  seem  disrespectful  to  him, 
but  the  outcome  of  his  demonology  was,  that  many  a  poor  woman 
died  in  shame  and  torture  in  Protestant  Germany,  just  because 
1  ,uther  had  given  his  sanction  to  the  old  lie,  and  he  needs  excusing 
solely  foi-  that.  I  do  not  undervalue  his  protest  against  man's  true 
and  real  spiritual  enemies.     I  excuse  his  protest  against  cenaic 


Queen  Emma  at  Eversley.  361 

fancied  enemies,  which  were  not  spiritual  at  all,  but  carnal,  phan- 
toms of  the  brain,  and  suftered  to  do  carnal  and  material  harm. 
Ever  since  the  4th  century  had  this  carnal  counterfeit  of  the  true 
dcmonology  been  interweaving  itself  with  Christianity.  It  had  cost 
the  lives  of  thousands.  It  is  so  horrible  a  matter  that  I  (who  have 
studied  it  largely)  cannot  speak  of  it  calmly,  and  do  not  wish  to. 
And  of  its  effects  on  physical  science  I  say  nothing  here,  disas- 
trously retarding  as  it  has  been,  and  therefore  costing  thousands  of 
lives  more,  and  preventing  tne  sick  from  being  properly  treated,  or 
smiiary  precautions  taken.  But  of  this  more  when  I  have  the  very 
i;ie\l  \)leasure  of  becoming  your  guest." 

In  the  autumn  Queen  Emma  of  the  Sandwich  Islands  came  on  a 
/isit  of  two  days  to  Eversley  Rectory.  King  Kamehameha,  hei 
husband,  had  read  Mr.  Kingsley's  books  and  she  was  anxious  to 
Inow  him.  She  also  wished  to  combine  with  her  visit  to  Eversley 
one  to  the  \\^ "Ellington  College,  of  which  she  had  heard  much,  and 
where  it  was  said  if  her  little  son  had  lived,  he  would  have  been 
sent  for  his  education.  It  was  a  great  pleasure  to  Mr.  Kingsley  to 
take  Queen  Emma  to  the  college,  and  to  point  out  to  her  all  the 
arrangements  made  by  the  wise  and  good  Prince,  of  whom  she  had 
heard  so  much,  to  make  it  a  first-rate  modern  school,  and  which 
were  so  admirably  carried  out  by  the  Head  Master.  Dr.  Benson 
took  her  all  over  it,  and  into  its  beautiful  chapel  and  museum. 
After  seeing  the  boys  at  dinner  in  hall,  and  tasting  their  pudding 
i'.t  the  high  table,  she  asked  for  a  half-holiday  for  them,  upon  which 
Fonsonby,  then  head  of  the  school,  called  for  three  cheers  foi 
Queen  Emma ;  and  as  they  resounded  through  the  dining  hall  at 
the  granting  of  her  request,  she  was  startled  almost  to  terror,  for  it 
was  the  first  time  in  her  life  that  she  had  heard  the  cheers  of  English 
public  school  boys.  She  went  on  the  playground,  and  for  the  first 
time  saw  a  game  of  cricket,  examined  the  bats,  balls,  wickets,  and 
pads,  looking  into  everything  with  her  own  ]>eculiar  intelligence. 
After  dinner  at  Eversley  Rectory,  she  drove  over  again  to  Welling- 
ton to  be  present  at  the  evening  choral  service  in  chapel,  fol- 
lowed the  musical  notes  of  each  hymn  and  chant,  and  was  struck,  as 
every  one  was,  by  the  reverent  behavior  of  the  boys.  In  driving 
back  to  the  Rectory  that  night,  she  said,  "  It  is  so  strange  to  me  to 
be  staying  with  you  and  to  see  Mr.  Kingsley.  My  husband  read 
your  husband's  '  VVaterbabies'  to  our  little  Prince,"  Queen  Emma 
wiote  soon  after  an   autograph  letter  to   Dr.   Benson,  which  was 


362  Charles  Kingsley. 

reau  aloud  to  tlie  boys,  expressi.ig  her  deep  gratification  with  hei 
visit  to  Wellington  College.  At  the  same  time  she  wrote  to  JVIr, 
Kingslej  : — 

November  3,  1865, 

"  1  huve  the  pleasure  to  fulfil  my  promise  of  sending  you  a  Book 
of  Common  Prayer  in  Hawaiian,  together  with  a  preface  written  by 
the  Translator  of  the  former,  Kamehameha  IV.,  my  late  husband, 
and  king  of  our  islands,  and  a  portrait  of  myself  which  will,  I  hope, 
sometimes  remind  you  of  one  who  has  learnt  to  esteem  you  and 
Mrs.  Kingsley,  as  friends  in  whose  welfare  and  happiness  she  will 
always  feel  the  greatest  interest.  Please  remember  me  kindly  to 
your  daughters, 

"And  believe  me  to  be, 

"  My  dear  Mr.  Kingsley, 

"  Yours  very  truly, 

"  Emma." 

On  the  9th  of  November,  he  went,  by  royal  command,  to  stay  at 
Windsor  Castle,  and  on  the  following  day,  while  preaching  before 
the  Court,  a  telegram  came  to  the  Queen  to  announce  the  death 
of  Leopold,  King  of  the  Belgians.  Mr.  Kingsley  had  been  asked 
to  write  a  few  lines  in  the  album  of  the  Crown  Princess  of  Prussia, 
and  with  his  mind  full  of  this  great  European  event,  wrote  the  fol- 
lowing Impromptu,  which  is  inserted  here  by  the  kind  pei mission 
of  her  Imperial  Highness  : 

November  10,  1865. 
"  A  king  is  dead  !   Another  master  mind 
Is  summoned  from  the  world-wide  council-hall 
Ah  for  some  seer,  to  say  what  lurks  behind — 
To  read  tlie  mystic  writing  on  the  wall ! 

"  Be  still,  fond  man  :  nor  ask  thy  fate  to  know. 
Face  bravely  what  each  God-sent  moment  brings. 
Above  thee  •  ules  in  love,  through  weal  and  woe, 
Gniding  thy  kings  and  thee,  the  King  of  kings. 

"  ".   KlNUSUlf  * 


CHAPTER   XXIV. 

1866— 1867. 
Aged  47 — 48. 

C*mbiidg». — Del  th  of  E  r.  Whewell— The  American  Professoiship — Moaotojious 
Life  of  the  Country  Laboring  Class — Penny  Readings — Strange  Correspond- 
ents— Life  ot  Bewick— Letters  to  Max  Miiller — The  Jews  in  Cornwall — The 
Meteor  Shower — Letter  to  Professor  Adams — The  House  of  Lords— A  Father's 
Education  of  his  Son — "  Eraser's  Magazine  " — Bird  Life,  Wood  Wrens — • 
Names  and  Places — Darwinism— Beauty  of  Color,  its  Influence  and  Attrac- 
tions— Fiat-Fish — Ice  Problems — St.  Andrews  and  British  Association — Aber- 
geldie  Castle — Rules  for  Stammerers. 

While  the  Professor  was  giving  his  usual  course  of  lectures  in 
the  Lent  term  of  1866  at  Cambridge,  a  great  blow  fell  upon  the 
University  in  the  death  of  Dr.  Whewell,  Master  of  Trinity,  and  he 
writes  home  : 

"  I  am  sorry  to  say  Whewell  is  beaten  by  his  terrible  foe.  It  is 
only  a  question  of  hours  now.  The  feeling  here  is  deep  and  solemn. 
Men  say  he  was  the  leader  in  progress  and  reform,  when  such  were 
a  persecuted  minority.  He  was  the  regenerator  of  Trinity ;  he  is 
connected  with  every  step  forward  that  the  University  has  made 
for  years  past. 

"Yes.  He  was  a  very  great  man  :  and  men  here  feel  the  awful 
suddenness  of  it.  He  never  was  better  or  pleasanter  than  on  the 
Thursday,  when  I  dined  there,  and  he  was  asking  me  for  my  '  dear 
wife.'  His  manner  with  women  was  always  charming.  He  wag 
\ery  kind  to  me,  and  I  was  very  fond  of  him. 

"  Whewell  is  dead !  I  spoke  a  few  solemn  words  to  the  lads 
before  lecture,  telhng  them  what  a  mighty  spirit  had  passed  away, 
what  he  had  been  to  Cambridge  and  science,  and  how  his  example 
ought  to  show  them  that  they  were  in  a  place  where  nothing  was 
required  for  the  most  splendid  success,  but  love  of  knowledge  and 
indomitable  energy.     They  heard  me  with  very  deep  attention. 

He  is  to  be  buried  in  the  College  Chapel,  Saturday 

I  am   up  to    the  eyes  in  work,   sending  round  my   Harvard  ad- 
dress."    ... 


364  Charles  Kings  ley. 

The  Hanard  address  alluded  to  here  was  on  the  subject  of  an 
American  Professorship,  which  had  been  proposed  for  Cambridge. 
The  following  letter  to  Sir  Charles  l^yell  explains  its  object : 

Barton  Hall,  February  i8,  1866. 

"1  take  the  liberty  of  enclosing  a  broadsheet  which  I  have  jusl 
Issued  at  Cambridge.  It  expresses,  I  am  happy  to  say,  the  opinions 
of  all  the  most  educated  Cambridge  men,  on  the  subject  of  the 
p!jposed  American  Lectureship,  to  be  founded  by  a  Mr.  Yatea 
Thompson,  of  Liverpool,  and  supplied  by  the  authorities  of  Har- 
vard College,  United  States.  If  any  of  your  many  American  friends 
are  interested  in  the  matter,  yoa  would  perhaps  kindly  show  them 
this  broadsheet." 

THE    AMERICAN    LECTURESHIP. 

"  I  trust  that  it  will  not  be  considered  impertinent,  if  I,  as  Pro- 
fessor of  Modern  History,  address  a  few  words  on  this  matter  to  the 
Masters  of  Art  in  this  University. 

"  My  own  wish  is,  that  the  proposal  be  accepted,  as  frankly  as  it 
has  been  made. 

"  Harvard  University — an  offshoot,  practically,  of  our  own  Uni- 
versity— is  a  body  so  distinguished,  that  any  proposition  coming 
from  it  deserves  our  most  respectful  consideration  ;  and  an  offer 
of  this  kind,  on  their  part,  is  to  be  looked  on  as  a  very  graceful 
ronipliment. 

*'  The  objections  are  obvious  ;  but  after  looking  them  through 
fairly,  as  they  suggested  themselves  to  me,  1  must  say  that  they  are 
fully  met  by  Mr.  Thompson's  own  conditions  ;  by  the  Vice-Chan- 
cellor's veto,  and  by  the  clause  empowering  either  University  to  put 
an  end  to  the  I^ectureship  when  they  like. 

*'  But  they  are  best  met  by  the  character  of  Harvard  University 
ii.solf.  Its  rulers,  learned  and  high-minded  gentlemen,  painfully 
aware  of  our  general  ignorance  about  them,  and  honorably  anxious 
to  prove  themselves  (what  they  are)  our  equals  in  civilization,  will 
lake  care  to  send  us  the  very  best  man  whom  they  can  find.  And 
jnoie  "han  one  person  suggests  himself  to  my  mind,  whom  if  they 
{hose  (as  they  would  be  very  likely  to  choose)  I  should  gladly 
vt^elcome  as  my  own  instructor  in  the  history  of  his  country. 

"When  I  did  myself  the  honor  of  lecturing  in  this  University  on 
tlie  History  of  the  United  States,  I  became  painfully  aware  how 
little  was  known,  and  how  little,  then,  could  be  known,  on  the 
subject.  This  great  want  has  been  since  supplied  by  a  large  addi- 
tion to  the  University  Library  of  American  literature.  I  think  Jl 
most  important  that  it  should  be  still  further  removed  by  the  rest 
deiiCf  among  us  of  an  American  gentleman. 


The  American  Lectureship  at  Cambridge.     365 

"  If  there  should  be,  in  any  minds,  the  fear  that  this  Universil) 
should  be  'Americanized,'  or  'democratized,'  they  should  remem- 
ber, tl-.at  this  proposal  comes  from  the  representatives  of  that  class 
in  America,  which  regards  England  with  most  love  and  respect; 
which  feels  itself  in  increasing  danger  of  being  swamped  by  tht 
lower  elements  of  a  vast  democracy  ;  which  has,  of  late  years, 
withdrawn  more  and  more  from  public  life,  in  order  to  preserve  its 
own  purity  and  self-respect;  which  now  holds  out  the  right  hand 
of  fellowship  to  us,  as  to  one  of  the  most  conservative  bodies  in 
this  country,  because  it  feels  itself  a  conservative  element  in  its 
own  country,  and  looks  to  us  for  just  recognition  in  that  character 
It  is  morally  impossible  that  such  men  should  go  out  of  their  way, 
to  become  propagandists  of  those  very  revolutionary  principles, 
against  which  they  are  honorably  struggling  at  home. 

"  And  if  there  be  (as  there  is)  an  attempt  going  on  just  now  to 
'Americanize'  England,  on  the  part  of  certain  Englishmen,  no 
better  defence  against  such  a  scheme  can  be  devised,  than  to  teach 
the  educated  young  men  of  England  as  much  as  possible  about 
America;  to  let  them  hear  the  truth  from  worthy  American  lips; 
and  judge  for  themselves. 

"  But  I  deprecate  the  introducing  into  this  question  any  notions 
drawn  from  general  American  politics,  or  manners.     We  have  no 

more  right  to  judge  of  Harvard  by  our  notions  of  the  ' • 

,'  or  the  '  Black  Republican '  pulpit,  than  Harvard  would  have 

to  judge  of  Cambridge  by  Reynolds's  'Mysteries  of  London,'  or, 

* .'     It  is  simply  a  question  between  two  dignified  and 

learned  bodies.  Let  it  remain  as  such.  There  are  as  great  differ- 
ences of  civilization,  rank,  leaining,  opinions,  manners,  in  America, 
as  in  England  ;  and  if  we  are  not  yet  convinced  of  that  fact,  it 
will  be  good  for  us  that  a  highly-educated  American  gentleman 
should  come  hither  and  prove  it. 

"  Of  the  general  importance  of  the  scheme,  of  the  great  necessity 
that  our  young  men  should  know  as  much  as  possible  of  a  country 
destined  to  be  the  greatest  in  the  world,  I  shall  say  little.  I  shall 
only  ask — If  in  the  second  century  before  the  Christian  era  the 
Romans  had  offered  to  send  a  lecturer  to  Athens,  that  he  might 
tell  Greek  gentlemen  of  what  manner  of  men  this  new  Italian 
l)ower  was  composed,  what  were  their  laws  and  ciistoms,  theii 
intentions,  and  their  nation  of  their  own  duty  and  destiny — would 
Athens  have  been  wise  or  foolish  in  accepting  the  offer? 

"  May  I,  in  conclusion,  allude  to  one  argument,  .vhich  would  of 
course  have  no  weight  with  the  University  in  a  question  of  right  and 
wrong,  but  which  ma}'  have  weight  in  one,  like  the  present,  of 
expediency  ? 

"  If  we  decline  this  offer,  I  fear  that  we  shall  give  offence,  not  oJ 
course  to  gentlemen  like  the  rulers  of  Harvard,  but  to  thousands 
who  care  as  little  for  Harvard  as  they  do  for  our  own  Cambridge- 


366  Charles  Kings  ley. 

A  sensitive  people  like  the  Americans,  instinct  with  national  feel 
ing,  among  whom  news  is  spread  far  more  rapidly  than  in  England, 
will  be  but  too  likely  to  take  u])  our  refusal  as  a  national  insult. 
The  lower  portion  of  the  American  press  will  be  but  too  likely  to 
misrepresent  and  vilify  our  motives  ;  and  a  fresh  soreness  between 
us  and  Americans  may  be  caused  (by  no  real  fault  of  our  own)  al 
the  very  time  when  we  should  be  doing  all  in  our  power  to  proniut? 
mutual  goo  1  will  and  good  understanding. 

"C.   KlNGSLEY. 
"February  9,  1866." 

The  offer  was  finally  rejected  by  vote  of  the  Senate,  to  the  great 
regret  of  many  leading  men  in  the  University. 

The  death  of  Dr.  Whewell,  the  appointment  of  Mr.  Maurice  to 
the  chair  of  Moral  Philosophy,  the  discussion  of  the  American 
Professorship,  and  the  happiness  of  having  his  eldest  son  an  under- 
graduate of  Trinity,  made  this  a  year  of  no  ordinary  interest,  as  far 
as  Cambridge  was  concerned,  to  the  Professor. 

His  yearly  residences  at  Cambridge  gave  him  not  only  the 
advantage  of  associating  with  scholars  and  men  of  mark  in  the 
University,  but  of  paying  visits  in  the  neigTiborhood  to  houses  where 
good  pictures  and  charming  society  refreshed  and  helped  him 
through  the  toil  of  his  professional  work — to  Wimpole,  to  Ampthil) 
Park,  and  other  country  houses,  where  he  and  his  were  always 
made  welcome.  While  staying  at  Ampthill  he  first  saw  the  pictures 
at  Woburn  Abbey  and  Haynes  Park,  which  were  of  deep  interest 
to  him,  and  in  reference  to  this  time  Mr.  George  Howard  write? 
from  Naworth  Castle  in  1876  : 

"  Once  I  went  over  the  picture  gallery  at  Woburn  with  him,  it 
was  a  great  treat  to  me,  as  his  talk  over  the  historical  portraits  was 
delightful.  He  then  made  a  remark  which  has  since  seemed  to  me 
quite  a  key  to  the  criticism  of  historical  portraits:  'That  it  was  for 
nierly  the  habit  of  portrait  painters  to  flatter  their  sitters  by  making 
tliem  as  like  the  reigning  king  or  queen  as  they  could.'      .     .     .  " 

During  his  heavy  parish  work,  which  was  done  single-hand  e 3 
the  greater  part  of  this  year,  he  was  more  than  ever  struck  by  the 
mcnotonous,  coloness  hfe  of  the  English  laborer,  varied  only  by 
the  yearly  benefit-club  day,  and  evenings  at  the  public-house.  The 
absence  of  all  pleasure  from  their  lives  weighed  heavily  on  hij 
heart,  more  especially  in  che  case  of  the  pooi  hard-worked  wive* 


Pxrish  Labors.  367 

and  molhers  who,  if  lespectable,  were  excluded  from  ev^en  the  poor 
amusements  of  the  men  ;  and  for  their  sake,  as  U'ell  as  for  his  men 
and  boys,  he  began  a  series  of  Penny  Readings,  which  now  have 
become  so  common.  It  was  characteristic  of  his  chivalrous  spirit 
that  at  the  first  meeting,  when  the  school-room  was  crowded  with 
men  and  boys,  he  made  an  appeal  to  them  for  their  wives  and 
mothers,  dweUing  on  the  life  of  toil  they  led,  and  saying  how 
anxious  he  should  be  to  give  them  a  share  in  this  amusement,  which 
they  so  sorely  needed.  It  was  therefore  arranged  that,  while  the 
men  and  boys  paid  their  pennies,  the  widows  and  poor  overbur 
dened  mothers  should  have  free  tickets. 

These  meetings,  in  which  his  parishioners  would  kindly  help  him, 
occurred  once  a  fortnight,  and  though  set  on  foot  for  the  poor, 
brought  all  classes  pleasantly  together  during  the  autumn  and  winter 
nights ;  they  had  music  (the  best  that  could  be  got),  the  best 
poetry,  the  most  heroic  stories.  Sometimes  he  would  give  simple 
lectures  on  health  ;  accounts  of  his  own  travels  ;  and  latterly  ex 
tracts  from  his  eldest  son's  letters  from  abroad,  in  which  storie;j 
ex|)ressly  for  the  Penny  Readings  at  home  were  not  forgotten. 
Village  concerts,  too,  were  given,  got  up  by  his  daughter  and  son, 
in  which  friends  from  London  helped  for  his  sake  ;  and  the  sight  of 
the  well-lighted  and  decorated  room  to  people  who  saw  nothing  at 
home  from  one  year's  end  to  another  but  a  farthing  dip  candle, 
was  a  pleasure  in  itself ;  the  poor  mothers  were  gratified  at  seeing 
their  sons  in  Sunday  garments  step  up  on  the  platform  to  help  in 
choruses  anJ  part  songs,  while  the  young  men  gained  in  self-re- 
spect and  refinement,  by  the  share  they  took  in  the  preparation  as 
well  as  the  performance.  "  It  was  to  him  most  curious,"  he  used 
to  say  "  to  watch  the  effect  of  music  upon  the  poor  people — upon, 
alas  !  seemingly  unimpressionable  drudges,  in  whom  one  would 
exi  ect  to  find  no  appreciation  for  refined  sound ; "  but  yet  who 
ivould  walk  two  miles  to  the  village  school-room  on  a  wet  night  and 
sit  in  rapt  attention  the  whole  evening,  "  showing  their  approba- 
tion of  good  music,  not  by  noisy  applause,  but  by  a  kindling  face 
and  eye  during  the  piece,  and  a  low  hum  of  approbation  after,  that 
'linted  at  a  deep  musical  under-current  below  that  rugged  exterior," 
Penr.3  Readings  are  common  now,  but  in  his  own  immediate 
neigliborhood  the  Rector  of  Everslcy  took  the  lead  in  inauguiatinj 
these  pleasant  gatherings. 


368  Charki  Ki  figs  ley. 

His  literary  ,vork  this  year  consisted  in  two  lectures  ou  Scien  Ei 
and  Superstition*  at  the  Royal  Institution.  He  preached  for  tha 
first  time  in  one  of  the  Great  Nave  services  at  Westminster  Abbey,f 
for  the  Bishop  of  London's  Fund ;  to  the  boys  of  WeUington  Col- 
lege ;  to  the  Queen  at  Clifden ;  and  his  usual  Chapel  Royal 
sermons.  In  the  little  congregation  at  Eversley  for  some  of  the 
summer  months,  many  distinguished  men  might  be  numbeicd 
jr.iong  them  were  Sir  George  Hamilton  Seymour  and  General  Sii 
\Vm.  Codrington. 

The  correspondence  was,  as  usual,  of  a  varied  and  singuiai 
character.  One  day  there  came  a  long  letter  from  a  London  news- 
paper reporter,  who,  in  return  for  some  kindly,  cheering  words, 
r-^vealed  the  inner  life  of  Bohemia  with  wonderful  vividness,  and 
ended,  "  I  have  written  you  a  very  long  and  tedious  letter,  IVfr. 
Kingsley,  and  were  I  writing  to  an  ordinary  man,  I  should  be  mad 
to  address  him  at  this  length  and  in  this  vein.  But  you  understand 
things,  and  I  am  almost  certain  that  you  will  understand  me  and 
my  long-windedness.  Thank  you  again.  Think  gently  of  Bohemia 
and  its  fiee  Lances."     .... 

Another  from  Brighton,  thanking  him  for  "  Alton  Locke,"  signed 
"  A  Chartist  and  Cabman." 

Again,  from  a  man  who  had  lived  abroad,  and  only  signed  him- 
self "  One  who  can  never  forget  you,"  who  had  accidentally  read 
"Alton  Locke"  "in  a  time  of  overhelming  misery" — "  You  were 
the  means  of  saving  me  from  ruin  and  destruction,  to  which  I  was 
fast  drifting." 

PVom  South  Australia,  1867,  a  barrister  writes,  t  lanking  him  for 
his  "  Sermons  for  the  Times,"  "  Pentateuch,"  and  "  Good  News," 
telling  him  how  they  were  read  frequently  by  the  special  magistrate, 
by  his  brother  barrister,  and  by  himself,  in  remote  places,  where 
llii:y  have  no  Church  clergymen,  and  the  Bishop  appoints  laymen 
tf^  read  sermons,  "  I  could  not,"  he  says,  "  write  as  a  stranger  tu 
a  L\\\\  who  has  so  honestly  spoken  to  me  of  my  life  and  its  duties, 
presented  for  the  first  time  in  the  light  in  which  yfu  portiay 
them."     .... 

Letters  came  from  China,  from  the  neart  of  Africa,  from  thr 
Other  side  of  the  Rocky  Mountains — all  telling  the  same  tsle. 

*  Sin(«  republished  in  "  Health  and  Edjcation." 

I   1  li.se  sermons  have  since  appeared  in  a  volume,  "  The  Water  of  Life." 


A  Grateful  Beneficiary.  369 

One  01  two  found  tlieir  way  to  "Charles  Kingslcy,  Englaml,'- 
many  were  without  any  signature — simple  outpourings  of  lovinp 
hearts,  neither  written  from  egotism  or  from  the  desire  of  getting 
an  autograph  in  return.  One,  also  anonymous,  dated  Glasgow, 
May  II,  1867,  is  so  touching  in  itself  and  so  significant  of  Mr 
Kiiigsley's  daily  acts  of  mercy  unknown  to  all  but  himself  am 
those  who  leceived  them,  that  it  must  be  given  entire  : 

"Charles  Kingsley, 

"  My  dear  friend,  permit  me  to  engage  your  kind  attention  for 
a  little.  I  often  remember  you  and  '  the  kindness  of  God,'  which 
you  showed  towards  me  some  years  ago.  You  found  me  in  the 
way  near  Hartly  Row,  a  poor,  homeless,  friendless,  penniless 
stranger.  God  sent  you  as  an  angel  of  mercy  to  me,  a  very  un 
worthy  creature.  You  were,  indeed,  like  the  good  Samaritan  to 
me.  You  took  me  to  the  Lamb  Inn,  and  there,  for  your  sake,  I 
was  very  hospitably  cared  for.  On  the  walls  of  a  room  in  that  inn 
1  wrote  a  prayer,  which  came  from  the  very  depths  of  my  heart. 
It  was  for  you,  that  the  Father  of  the  fatherless  would  make  you 
most  glad  with  His  countenance  for  ever.  That  prayer  1  have 
often  breathed  since  then. 

"  I  was  not  aware,  till  afterwards,  that  you  were  the  author  of  so 
many  books,  and  a  person  of  so  great  note.  I  rejoice  in  your  hon- 
orable fame." 

These  letters,  and  many  a  strange  communication  that  he  re- 
ceived, not  only  cheered  him  in  his  work,  but  gave  him  fresh 
knowledge  of  human  nature  in  all  its  varied  aspects  that  few  men 
have,  and  deepened  his  own  humanity.  He  little  thought  thej) 
were  treasured  up,  to  give  others  some  small  insight  into  his  great 
work,  by  one  who  feels  it  is  no  treachery  to  disclose  them  now,  oj 
to  mention  what  he  never  alluded  to  in  his  lifetime  ! 


TO    MR.    T.    DIXON. 

EvERSLEY,  October  27,  1866. 

"  The  volumes  of  Bewick  are  come,  and  may  I  beg  you  to  give  to 
(lie  Jlisses  Bewick  the  enclosed  letter  of  thanks. 

"  I  am  delighted  with  the  new  vignettes — all  showing  the  genius 
which  shines  from  every  touch  of  the  truly  great  man's  hand.  Of 
rourse,.  as  the  happy  possessor  of  a  Newcastle  copy  of  1809,  in 
which  my  father  literally  brought  me  up,  I  prefer  the  old,  untouched 
jjiates  for  softness,  richness,  and  clearness.  But  we  cannot  expect 
everything  to  last ;  and  the  volumes  which  have  been  sent  to  me 
24. 


570  Charles  Khigsley. 

are  very  valuable  as  memorials  cf  Bewick,  as  well  as  proofs  of  tht 
kindness  of  people  whom  I  know  not,  yet  respect. 

"  I  do  not  quite  understand  the  end  of  your  letter,  in  which  3'-on 
are  kind  enough  to  compliment  me  for  following  Carlyle'G  advice 
about  one  '  sadly  tried.'  I  have  followed  the  sage  of  Chelsea's 
teaching,  about  my  noble  friend,  ex-Governor  Eyre  of  Jamaica.  J 
have  been  cursed  for  it,  as  if  I  had  been  a  dog,  who  had  never  stood 
up  for  the  working  man  when  all  the  world  was  hounding  him  (the 
working  man)  down  in  1848-9,  and  imperilled  my  own  prospects 
in  life  in  behalf  of  freedom  and  justice.  Now,  men  insult  mt 
because  I  stand  up  for  a  man  whom  I  believe  ill-used,  calumniated^ 
and  hunted  to  death  by  fanatics.  If  you  mean  Mr.  Eyre  in  what 
you  say,  you  indeed  will  give  me  pleasure,  because  I  shall  see  that 
one  more  '  man  of  the  people  '  has  common  sense  to  appreciate  a 
brave  and  good  man,  doing  his  best  under  terrible  difficulties  :  but 
if  not,  I  know  that  I  am  right." 

to  the  misses  bewick. 

"  My  dear  Ladies, 

"  1  received  with  great  pleasure  the  present  of  your  father's 
works  in  two  volumes.  The  old  edition  of  1804  is  fresher  and 
richer  in  the  printing  of  the  wood-cuts,  but  this  is  very  interesting 
to  me  and  to  my  children,  as  containing  so  many  new  vignettes 
which  the  old  edition  wants,  and  which  all  show  the  genius  which 
always  accomj^anied  his  hand. 

"  Ladies,  it  is  a  great  boon  from  God  to  have  had  a  great  father. 
And  1  had  no  idea  what  a  nol)le  specimen  of  an  Englishman  he  was, 
till  you  did  me  the  honor  of  sending  me  his  '  Life.'  The  wisdom, 
justice,  moderation,  and  energy  of  his  character  impressed  me  with 
a  moral  reverence  for  him,  even  greater  than  that  which  I  already 
felt  for  his  artistic  honor.  Happy  are  the  daughters  who  have 
sprung  from  such  a  man,  and  who  will  meet  him  again  m  heaven. 
*'  I  am,  my  dear  Ladies, 

"  Your  obliged  Servant, 

"  Charles  Kingslev." 

TO  the  same. 

April ^  1S67. 

**  Mrs.  Kingsley  and  I  have  to  thank  you  very  much  for  youi 
most  valuable  present  of  your  father's  handwriting,  and  the  sketch 
acompanying  it.  I  shall  treasure  them  and  pass  them  on  as  heir- 
looms to  my  eldest  son,  who  has  been  brought  up  on  your  father's 
books,  and  is  going  out  some  day  as  a  naturalist  and  a  settler. 

"  But,  my  dear  madam,  you  must  not  spe£,k  of  my  approving 
your  father's  labors,  you  must  speak  of  me  as  one  who  has  been 
jou  father's  loving,  reverent  pupil,  as  was  my  father  befo  e  nie. 


Jews    Tin  aiu^  Jews  Houses.  371 

"  Wnen  your  fathers  book  of  birds  first  came  out,  :ny  father, 
ihen  a  young  hunting  squire,  in  the  New  Forest,  Han.  )shire,  sa\« 
the  book  in  London,  and  bought  at  once  the  beautiful  old  copy 
which  has  l)een  the  text-book  of  my  boyhood.  He,  a  sportsman 
and  field  naturalist,  loved  it  and  carried  it  with  him  up  and  down 
in  diys  when  no  scientific  knowledge  could  be  had,  from  1805-1820, 
fcnd  when  he  was  laughed  at  in  the  New  Forest  for  having  bought 
a  book  about  'dicky  birdies,'  till  his  fellow  squires  borrowing  his 
copy,  agreed  that  it  was  the  most  clever  book  they  had  ever  seen, 
and  a  revelation  to  them,  who  had  had  these  phenomena  under 
their  eyes  all  their  lives  and  never  noticed  them. 

••  That  my  father  should  have  introduced  into  the  south  of  Eng- 
land, first,  your  father's  book,  and  have  known  his  great  pupil, 
Yarrell,  in  person,  is  to  me  a  great  ]:)leasure.  Yarrell  and  my  father 
were  friends  from  youth  till  death,  and  if  my  father  had  been  alive 
now  he  would  have  joined  me  in  respect  and  aftection  for  the 
daughters  of  the  great  and  wise  Jiewick." 

TO    PROFESSOR    MAX    mOlLER. 

EvERSLEY,  November  16,  1866. 
"  Dearest  Max, 

"  Story,  bless  you,  I  have  none  to  tell  you,  save  that  in  Corn 
wall  these  same  old  stories,  of  Jews'  tin  and  Jews'  houses,  got  from 
the  miners,  filled  my  young  brains  with  unhistoric  nonsense,  like 
Mara-zion,  the  bitterness  of  Zion  ;  which  town  the  old  folk,  I  can't 
tell  why,  call  Market  Jew  still. 

"  That  the  Jews  came  to  Cornwall  as  slaves  after  the  destruction 
of  Jerusalem  is  possible  and  probable  enough,  but  I  know  of  no 
evidence.  That  the  old  smelting  works,  and  the  tin  found  in  them 
was  immemorially  called  Jews'  tin  and  Jews'  houses  is  well  known  ; 
also  that  they  are  of  an  awful  antiquity.  Market  Jew,  as  a  town,  is  a 
name  _>'<?«  must  explain.  That  is  all.  I  put  it  in  '  Yeast,'  into  the 
mouth  of  a  Cornish  ex-miner.  But  I  am  glad  you  are  taking  the 
matter  up,  and  working  Carew,  Polwhele,  and  Borlase.  1  should 
expect  you  to  find  the  root  of  the  myths  in  that  fruitful  mother  of 
wmd  eggs,  the  sixteenth  century. 

"  My  dear  Max,  what  great  things  have  happened  for  Germany, 
and  what  great  men  your  Prussians  have  shown  themselves.  Much 
as  I  was  wroth  with  them  about  Schleswig-Holstein,  1  can  only  see 
in  this  last  campaign  a  great  necessary  move  for  the  physical 
safety  of  every  North  German  household,  and  the  honor  of  every 
North  German  woman.  To  allow  the  possibility  of  a  second 
1  807-1812  to  remain,  when  it  coald  be  averted  by  any  amouni  of 
fighting,  were  sin  and  shame,  and  had  I  been  a  Prussian  1  would 
have  gone  down  to  Sadowa  as  a  sacred  duty  to  wife  a:\d  child  and 
fatherland. 

*'  1  auj  reading  much  German   now,  and  shall  need  to  ask  yo» 


372  C harks  Kings  ley. 

questions,  specially  about  the  reaction  from   1815-1820,  and  thf 
alleged  treachery  of  the  princes  in  not  granting  constitutions. 

"  Meanwhile,  tell  me  if  Gervinus,  whom  I  am  studying  on  :hat 
matter,  is  worthy  of  credit,  and  recommend  me  a  good  author, 
specially  one  who  has  thought  before  he  wrote,  and,  not  like 
(lervinus,  thought  in  writing,  to  the  perplexing  of  himself  anj 
reader."     .... 

The  great  meteor  shower  of  November,  1866,  was  naturally  of 
intense  and,  as  he  said  himself,  awful  interest  to  him.  In  tremblirg 
excitement  he  paced  up  and  down  the  church-yard,  where  he  had 
a  greater  sweep  of  horizon  than  elsewhere,  long  before  the  time 
arrived,  and  when  the  shower  began  called  his  wife  and  children 
out  of  their  beds  to  watch  with  him.  He  preached  upon  the  great 
spectacle  in  his  own  church  and  at  the  Chapel  Royal. 

TO    PROFESSOR   ADAMS. 

EvERSLEY,  November  14,  1866. 

"The  Jinns*  (according  to  the  Mussulman  theory  of  meteors) 
must  have  had  a  warm  time  of  it  about  i  a.m.  this  morning,  and  the 
Eastern  peoples  (if  the  star  shower  was  visible  to  them;  must  be 
congratulating  themselves  that  (unless  the  angels  are  very  bad 
shots)  there  is  a  very  fair  chance  of  the  devil  being  killed  at  last. 

"What  I  saw  may  at  least  amuse  you.  1  presume  any  local 
observations  have  value,  however  small. 

"  I  saw  the  first  meteor  about  11.50,  i.e.,  as  soon  as  the  head  of 
I, CO  rose  above  our  rather  high  horizon.  From  that  time  the  slai 
rain  increased  till  about  i  a.m.,  and  diminished  till  about  2.30, 
wlien  very  few  passed.  I'hey  went  on,  1  am  told,  till  5.30  this 
morning.  I  saw  no  increase  or  diminution  in  the  size  of  the  me- 
teors from  beginning  to  end.  Some  of  them  were  larger  and  nioie 
brilliant  than  connnon  shooting  stars,  but  not  many.  The  moht 
brilliant  appeared  of  a  reddish  color,  their  tails  green  and  bluish. 
They  all  proceeded  from  the  one  point  in  Leo,  only  one  other  star 
(as  far  as  I  saw)  fell  at  right  angles  to  their  course,  from  the  zeniih 
to  the  north.  1  was  struck  by  the  fact  that  they  all  proceeded  in 
quasi-straight  lines  without  any  of  that  wavering  and  uncertainty 
cf  direction  so  common  in  meteors.  Any  large  number  became 
s'isible  only  about  the  zenith,  or  in  falling  towards  the  western 
horizon. 

*  The  Jinns  or  second  order  of  spirits  are  supposed  by  the  Mussulman  to  b« 
many  of  tliem  killed  by  shooting  stars,  hurled  at  them  from  heaven  •  wherefore, 
ihe  Arabs,  when  they  see  a  shootinj^  slar,  often  exclaim.  "  May  God  traiiitw 
the  enemy  of  the  faith  !" — Notes  to  Lar.es  "  Thousand  ;  |d  One  Nig.'iti "' 


The  Star  Shozucr.  373 

"But  the  must  sinking  and  (to  nie)  awful  ])henoinenon  was  the 
point  of  departure  in  Leo,  where,  again  and  again,  meteors  appeared 
and  liung  for  a  moment,  their  ta.l  so  much  foreshor'^ened  as  to  be 
wholly  or  almost  wholly  unseen.  These  must  have  been  coming 
straight  at  is.     Surely  some  may  have  struck  our  planet? 

"The  seemmg  generation  of  these  magnificent  objects  out  of  a 
point  of  nonentity  and  void,  was  to  me  the  most  beautiful  and  stiik 
ing  sky  phenomenon  which  I  ever  witnessed.  Yet  the  actual  facta 
cf  their  course  are  far  more  wonderful  and  awful  than  even  that 
api^earance.  I  tried  to  picture  to  myself  the  thought  and  feelings 
of  a  mediaeval  observer,  however  rational  or  cool-headed  he  might 
have  been,  in  presence  of  that  star  shower ;  and  when  I  thought 
of  the  terror  with  which  he  had  a  right  to  regard  it,  and  the  fantastic 
explanation  which  he  had  a  right  to  put  upon  it,  I  thanked  your 
astronomers  for  having  'delivered  us  by  science  from  one  more 
object  of  dread.' 

"  I  ought  to  say  that  there  was  here  (in  North  Hants)  no  sign 
of  an  Aurora  Borealis,  which  is  said  to  have  accompanied  the  star 
shower  in  certain  cases. 

"By-the-bye,  what  a  lecture  one  might  have  given  (illustrated  by 
nature's  own  diagrams)  on  the  prospective  of  parallel  lines  and  the 
meaning  of  a  vanishmg  point." 

TO    PROFESSOR    LORIMER    OF    EDINBURGH. 

EVERSLEY,  Decenibjr  17,  1866. 

"  I  received  some  mr)nfhs  since  (and  I  hope  duly  acknowledged) 
your  book  on  'The  CuusLUutionalism  of  the  Future.' 

"  I  laid  it  by  for  study,  when  1  should  have  time  to  do  it  justice. 
I  now  write  to  express  my  great  pleasure,  both  in  the  matter  and 
the  manner  of  it.  The  views  which  you  put  forth  are  just  those  to 
which  1  have  been  led  by  twenty  years  of  thought  and  observa- 
tion ;  its  manner,  I  wish  1  could  copy.  In  it,  clearness  and  method 
are  not  merely  ornamented,  but  strengthened  by  a  vein  of  humor, 
vdiich  is  a  sure  sign  of  mastery  of  the  subject,  and  of  that  faculty 
i«'hi::h  no  education  can  give,  called  genius.  I  wish  that  in  the 
wriiings  of  our  mutual  friend,  jVIr.  Mill,  I  could  see  some  touch  of 
th.it  same  humor.     I  wish  that  there  was  any  chance  of  your  wise 

advice  being  adopted;  but   Mr. 's  party  have  let  loose  that 

spirit  of  envy,  which  is  the  counterfeit  of  your  righteous  idea  of 
equality  relative,  and  tempts  men  to  demand  that  impossible 
equality  absolute,  which  must  end  in  making  the  moneylenders  the 
only  privileged  class.  To  men  possessed  by  envy,  your  truly 
scientilic,  as  well  as  truly  religious  method,  of  looking  for  the  facts 
of  God's  world,  and  trying  to  represent  them  in  laws,  will  be  the 
plot  of  a  concealed  aristocrat.  1  fear,  toe.  hat  Mr.  Mill  and  those 
A'iio  fallow  him  most  closely,  will  hardly  support  y  mu-  method,  aii:;' 


374  Charles  Kings  ley. 

for  the  same  reason,  Mr.  Mill  (of  whom  I  speak  with  real  ie\  erencej 
seems  to  me  to  look  on  man  too  much  as  the  creature  of  circum- 
stances. This  it  is,  which  makes  him  disparage,  if  not  totally  deny, 
the  congenial  differences  of  character  in  individuals,  and  still  more 
in  races.  He  has,  if  I  mistake  not,  openly  denounced  the  doctrine 
of  difference  and  superiority  in  race.  And  it  is  this  mistake  (as  it 
seems  to  me)  which  has  led  him  and  others  into  that  theory  th  ii 
the  suffrage  ought  to  be  educational  and  formative,  which  you  hj\e 
so  ably  combated. 

*'  Of  course  if  it  is  assumed  that  all  men  are  born  into  the  woild 
equals,  and  Jiat  their  inequality,  in  intellect  or  morals,  is  chargea- 
bU  entirel}  to  circumstance,  that  inequality  must  be  regarded  as  a 
wrong  done  by  society  to  the  less  favored.  Society  therefor  has  no 
right  to  punish  them  by  withholding  the  suffrage,  for  an  inferiority 
which  she  herself  has  created  ;  she  is  bcund  to  treat  them  as  if 
they  were  actually  what  they  would  have  been  but  for  her,  and  if 
they  misuse  their  rights,  she  must  pay  the  penalty  of  her  previous 
neglect  and  cruelty.  This  seems  to  me  to  be  the  revolutionary  doc- 
trine of  1 793-1848,  which  convulsed  Euroi)e  ;  and  from  its  logic 
and  morality  there  is  no  escape  as  long  as  human  beings  are  as- 
serted to  be  congenitally  equal,  and  circumstances  the  only  cause 
of  subsequent  inequality.  I  have  some  right  to  speak  on  this 
subject,  as  1  held  that  doctrine  strongly  myself  in  past  years, 
and  was  cured  of  it,  in  spite  of  its  seeming  justice  and  charity,  by 
the  harsh  school  of  facts.  Nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  spent  in 
educating  my  parishioners,  and  experience  with  my  own  and  others 
children,  in  fact,  that  schooling  of  facts  brought  home  to  the  heart 
— which  Mr.  Mill  has  never  had — have  taught  me  that  there  are 
congenital  differences  and  hereditary  tendencies  which  defy  all  edu- 
cation from  circumstances,  whether  for  good  or  evil.  Society  may 
pity  those  who  are  bora  fools  or  knaves,  but  she  cannot,  for  hei 
own  sake,  allow  them  power  if  she  can  help  it.  And  therefore 
in  the  case  of  the  suffrage,  she  must  demand  some  practical  guar- 
antee that  the  man  on  whom  it  is  bestowed  is  not  dangerously 
knavish  or  foolish.  I  have  seen,  also,  that  the  ditTerences  of  race 
are  so  great,  that  certain  races,  e.g.,  the  Irish  Celts,  seem  quite 
unfit  for  self-government,  and  almost  for  the  self-administration  of 
justice  involved  in  trial  by  jury,  because  they  regard  freedom  and 
law,  not  as  means  for  preserving  what  is  just  and  right,  but  merely 
as  weai>ons  to  be  used  for  their  own  private  interests  and  passions. 
They  take  the  letter  of  freedom  which  killeth,  without  any  concep- 
tion of  its  spirit  which  giveth  lite.  Nay,  I  go  further,  and  feai 
much  that  no  Roman  Catholic  country  will  ever  be  fit  for  free  con- 
stitutional government,  and  for  this  simple  reason,  De  Tocqueville 
and  his  school  (of  whom  I  speak  with  great  respeC.)  say  that  the 
cause  of  failure  of  free  institutions  in  the  Romance  countries  haf 
been,  the  absence  of  the  primary  tiaining  in  municipal  self  govern 


The  Right  of  Stiff  rage.  2>7b 

nient.  That  I  doubt  not.  But  what  has  been  tl-.e  cause  of  thai 
want? — the  previous  want  of  training  in  self  government  of  the 
individual  himself.  And  as  long  as  the  system  of  education  for  a'l 
classes  in  the  Romance  countries  is  one  of  tutelage  and  espionage 
(proceeding  from  the  priestly  notions  concerning  sin),  so  long  will 
neither  rich  nor  poor  have  any  power  of  self-government.  Any 
one  who  knows  the  difference  between  a  French  lycee  arJ  an 
English  public  school  ought  to  see  what  I  mean,  and  see  one  main 
cause  of  the  failure  of  all  attempts  at  self-government  in  France. 
May  I  without  boring  you  (at  least  you  are  not  bound  to  read  this  long 
letter)  go  on  to  another  subject,  which  seems  to  me  just  now  of 
great  importance  ?  I  think  the  giving  intellect  and  civilization  it^ 
due  weight,  by  means  of  plurality  of  votes,  as  you  so  well  advise, 
practically  hopeless  just  now.  But  is  there  no  body  or  inHuence 
in  the  state  which  may  secure  them  their  due  weight  nevertheless? 
\  think  that  there  is,  namely,  the  House  of  Lords.  You  seem  (and 
herein  alone  I  differ  from  you)  to  regard  as  the  majority  do,  the  Peers, 
as  standing  alone  in  the  state,  and  representing  only  themselves. 
I,  on  the  contrary,  look  at  them  as  representing  every  silver  fork 
in  Great  Britain.  What  1  mean  is  this,  a  person  or  body  may  be 
truly  representative  without  being  elected  by  those  whom  they 
represent.  You  will  of  course  allow  this.  Now  the  House  of 
Lords  seem  to  me  to  represent  all  heritable  property,  real  or  per- 
sonal, and  also  all  heritable  products  of  moral  civilization,  such  as 
hereditary  indej^endence,  chivalry,  &c.  They  represent,  in  one 
word,  the  hereditary  principle.  This,  no  House  of  Commons,  no 
elective  body,  can  rei)resent.  It  can  only  represent  the  temporary 
wants  and  opinions  of  the  many,  and  that  portion  of  their  capital 
which  is  temporarily  invested  in  trade,  &c.  It  cannot  represent  the 
hereditary  instinct  which  binds  man  and  the  state  to  the  past  and 
future  generations.  If  you  watch  the  current  of  American  feeling 
and  society  you  will  see  full  proof  of  this.  If  the  family  bond 
should  break  up  there,  soon  the  bond  will  break  up  which  makes  a 
nation  responsible  in  honor  for  the  deeds  of  its  ancestors,  and 
therefore  regardful  of  the  obligation  of  international  treaties.  Now 
a  body  is  required  which  represents  the  past  and  the  future,  and 
all  material  or  spiritual  which  has  been  inherited  from  the  past  or 
bequeathed  to  the  future.  And  this  body  must  itself  be  an  hereditary 
one.  Some  one  may  answer,  '  Just  as  much  as,  Who  drives  fat 
oxen  must  himself  be  fat.'     But  it  seems  to  me, 

"  1.  That  such  a  body  must  be  non-electei,  to  keep  it  safe  from 
the  changes  of  temporary  popular  opinion.  An  elective  uppei 
chamber  is  a  monster  which  is  certain  to  become  a  den  of  dema- 
gogues and  money-lenders. 

"  2,  That  it  must  be  hereditary,  because  it  is  impossible  for  mer 
to  represent  that  which  they  are  not  themselves.  The  Peers  arc 
the  incarnation  of  the  hereriitary  principle.     I  look  on  them  t'jere- 


376  Charles  Kings  ley. 

fore  as  vhat  they  are  in  fact,  not  a  caste,  not  even  a  c  aa>,  but  4 
certain  number  of  specimens  of  a  class  chosen  out  by  tie  acciden  ( 
(and  a  very  fair  choice,  because  it  prevents  quarrels  aiid  popular 
intrig  les)  of  being  eldest  sons.  I  look  on  them  as  the  xq\  resenta- 
tives,  not  only  of  every  younger  brother,  &c.,  of  their  own  kin,  and 
of  every  family  which  has  ever  intermarried,  or  hopes  to  intermarry 
with  them  (though  that  would  include  the  great  majority  of  w(  11- 
educated  Britons),  but  as  the  representatives  of  every  man  who  has 
saved  up  enough  to  buy  a  silver  fork,  a  picture,  a  Yankee  clock,  or 
anything,  in  fact,  which  he  wishes  to  hand  to  his  children.  I  hold 
that  while  Mr.  Bright  may,  if  he  likes,  claim  to  be  represented 
merely  by  the  House  of  Commons,  his  plate  and  house  is  repre- 
sented by  the  House  of  Lords,  and  that  if  the  House  of  Lords  were 
abolished,  Mr.  Blight's  children  would  discover  that  fact  by  the 
introduction  of  laws  which  would  injure  the  value  of  all  heritable 
property,  would  tax  (under  the  name  of  luxuries)  the  products  of 
art  and  civilization,  would  try  to  drive  capital  into  tlio^e  trades 
which  afforded  most  employment  for  ?/«-skilled  labor,  and  supplied 
most  the  temporary  necessities  of  the  back  and  belly,  and  would 
tend  to  tax  the  rich  for  the  sake  of  the  poor,  with  'wery  ugly  results 
to  civihzation. 

"  This  picture  may  seem  overdrawn.  But  I  answer,  this  is  already 
the  tendency  in  the  United  States.  The  next  fifty  years  will  prove 
whctlier  that  tendency  can  be  conquered  or  not  in  a  pure  demo- 
cracy, such  as  they  have  now  for  the  first  time  become,  since  they 
have  exterminated  their  southern  hereditary  aristocracy,  and  their 
northern  hereditary  aristocracy,  the  Puritan  gentlemen  of  old 
families  have  retired  in  disgust  from  public  life.  May  I  ask  you  to 
think  over  this  view  of  the  House  of  Lords.  And  may  I  ask  you 
how  far  you  think,  if  it  be  correct,  it  can  be  wisely  pressed  upofi 
all  classes,  and  specially  upon  the  i\\\^(\.  persons  (there  is  no  titled 
class  in  these  reahns)  themselves  ? 

"  Pray  excuse  the  length  of  this  letter.  But  your  book  awoke 
such  an  interest  in  me — a  solitary  country  thinker — that  I  could 
not  resist  the  temi)tation  of  pouring  out  to  you  some  of  the  re- 
sults of  my  years  of  practical  observation  of,  and  pondering  on, 
facts." 

\\\  the  spring  of  1867  he  undertook  the  editorship  of  "  Eraser's 
Magazine"  for  a  few  months  for  Mr.  Froude,  who  had  to  go  to 
Si)ain  to  study  the  archives  of  Simancas  for  his  history,  and  he 
seized  upon  this  opportunity  to  get  a  few  papers  en  science  into  its 
pages,  and  wrote  to  his  friends  Professor  Newton  Sir  Charles  Bun 
bury,  and  others,  begging  for  help,  to  which  they  kindly  responded 
— Professor  Nowtcn  writing  on  the  Birds  of  Norfolk  :  Sir  Charles 


Natural  Selection.  ^y) 

on  thii  Flora  of  South  America  ;    he  liimself  contribiting  one  of 
his  most  lovely  idylls,  "  A  Charm  of  Birds." 

TO   CHARLES    DARWIN,    ESQ.,    F.I.S.,  F.G.S. 

EvERSLEY,  j^uiie  6,  iS6) 

*'  I  am  very  anxious  to  obtain  a  copy  of  a  pamphlet,  \\\\\d  I 
unfortunately  lost.  It  came  out  shortly  after  your  '  Origin  'jf 
Species,'  and  was  entitled  '  Reasons  for  believing  in  Mr.  Darwin  s 
Theory' — or  some  such  words.  It  contained  a  list  of  phenomenal 
puzzles,  forty  or  more,  which  were  explicable  by  you  and  not 
otherwise.  If  you  can  recollect  it,  and  tell  me  where  I  can  get  a 
copy,  I  shall  be  very  glad,  as  I  may  specially  want  it  in  your 
defence. 

"  I  advise  you  to  look  at  a  wonderful  article  in  the  '  North 
British '  about  you.  It  is  a  pity  the  man  who  wrote  it  had  not 
studied  zoology  and  botany,  before  writing  about  them. 

"  The  Duke  of  Argyle's  book  is  very  fair  and  manly,  although 
he  cannot  agree  with  you.  What  he  says  about  the  humming  birds 
is  his  weakest  part.  He  utterly  overlooks  sexual  selection  by  the 
females,  as  one  great  branch  of  natural  selection.  Why  on  earth 
are  the  males  only  (to  use  his  teleological  view)  ornamented,  save 
for  the  amusement  of  the  females  tirst  ?  In  his  earnestness  to 
press  the  point  (which  I  think  you  have  really  overlooked  too 
much),  that  beauty  in  animals  and  plants  is  intended  for  the  aes- 
thetic education  and  pleasure  of  man,  and  (as  I  believe  in  my  old 
fashioned  way),  for  the  pleasure  of  a  God  who  rejoices  in  His 
works  as  a  painter  in  his  picture — in  his  hurry,  I  say,  to  urge  this 
truth,  he  has  overlooked  that  beauty  in  any  animal  must  surely  first 
please  the  animals  of  that  species,  and  that  beauty  in  males  alone 
is  a  broad  hint  that  the  females  are  meant  to  be  charmed  thereby 
— and  once  allow  that  any  striking  new  color  would  attract  any 
single  female,  you  have  an  opening  for  endless  variation. 

"  Altogether,  even  the  '  North  British'  pleases  me,  for  the  writer 
is  forced  to  allow  some  natural  selection,  and  forced  to  allow  some 
great  duration  of  the  earth  ;  and  so  every  one  who  fights  you  is 
forced  to  allow  some  of  your  arguments,  as  a  tub  to  the  whale,  if 
only  he  may  be  allowed  to  deny  others,  while  very  few  have  the 
honesty  to  confess  that  they  know  nothing  about  the  matter,  save 
what  you  have  put  into  their  heads. 

"  Remark  that  the  argument  of  the  *  North  British,'  that  geolo- 
gical changes  were  more  violent,  and  the  physical  energies  of  the 
earth  more  intense  in  old  times,  cuts  both  ways.  For  if  that 
be  true,  then  changes  of  circumstance  in  plants  and  animals  must 
have  been  more  rapid,  and  the  inclination  to  vary  from  oiiiward 
circumstance  greater  ;  and  also,  if  the  physical  energies  of  the 
earth   vvere  greater,  so  must  the  physical  energies  of  the  anima!> 


^78  Charles  Kings  ley 

and  plants  ;  a-nd,  therefore,  their  tendency  to  sport  may  have  becB 
greater;  and  not  without  a  gleam  of  scientific  insight  have  the 
legends  of  so  many  races  talked  of  giants  and  monsters  on  the 
earth  of  old."     .... 

EVERSLEY,    July    12,    1S67. 

"  I  flee  to  you,  as  usual,  in  ignorance  and  wonder.  Have  yuj 
investigated  the  migration  of  the  eye  in  flat-fish  ?  I  have  been 
reading  a  paper  on  it  by  Professor  Thompson  in  '  Natural  History 
Magazine '  for  May,  1865.  I  took  to  your  methods  for  explaining 
how  the  miracle  takes  place  ;  whether  the  eye  passes  through  the 
skull,  or  round  the  soft  parts,  is  a  minor  question.  Will  you  kindly 
do  me  the  honor  to  look  at  two  lectures  of  mine  on  '  Science  and 
Superstition,'  given  at  the  Royal  Institution,  and  reprinted  in 
Fraser' s  Magazine  for  June  and  July  ?  I  think  you  will  find  that 
I  am  not  unmindful  of  your  teaching.  I  heard  with  extreme 
pleasure  that  your  health  is  much  improved." 

Trinity  Lodge,  Cambridge,  December  15,  1867. 

"  I  have  been  here  three  or  four  days,  and  have  been  accidentally 
drawn,  again  and  again,  into  what  the  world  calls  Darwmism,  and 
you  and  I  and  some  others,  fact  and  science.  I  have  been  drawn 
thereinto,  simply  because  I  find  every  one  talking  about  it  to  any 
one  who  is  supposed  to  know  (or  mis-know)  anything  about  it ;  ah 
showing  how  men's  minds  are  stirred.  I  find  the  best  and  strongest 
men  coming  over. 

'•  I.  Because,  being  really  great  men,  they  know  so  much  already 
which  they  cannot  co-ordinate  with  your  theories  (at  least  as  yet), 
and  say  (as  they  have  a  right),  '  I  will  stand  by  what  I  do  know 
from  mathematics,   before  I  give  in   to  what  I  don't  know  from 

.'     That  last  dash  is  the  key  of  the  position.     They  don't 

know.  The  men  have  been  asking  me  questions,  e.g.,  'You  don't 
say  that  there  are  links  between  a  cat  and  a  dog  ?  If  so,  what  are 
they  ? '  To  which  I  have  been  forced  to  answer — my  dear  fellow, 
you  must  read  and  find  out  for  yourself.  I  am  not  bound  to  answer 
such  a  question  as  that.  I  am  not  bound  to  teach  you  the  alpha- 
bet, while  you  are  solemnly  disputing  about  my  translation  of  the 
language. 

"  That  is  what  it  comes  to,  my  dear  and  honored  master.  If 
men  don't  agree  with  you,  it  is  because  they  don't  know  facts;  and 
what  I  do  is  simply  to  say  to  every  one,  as  I  have  been  doing  foi 
three  days  past,  '  Wih  jou  kindly  ascertain  what  facts  there  are  to 
be  known  or  disproved,  before  you  talk  on  this  matter  at  all?' 
And  I  find,  in  Cambridge,  that  the  younger  M.x\.'s  are  not  only 
willing,  but  greedy,  to  hear  what  you  have  to  say  ;  and  that  the 
elder  (who  have,  of  course,  more   old   notions  to  overcr  me)  are 


A    Visit  to  Scotland.  379 

facing  the  whole  question  in  quite  a  different  tone  from  whai 
they  did  three  years  ago.  I  won't  mention  names,  for  fear  of 
'compromising'  men  who  are  in  an  honest,  but  'funky/  stage 
of  conversion :  but  1  have  been  surprised,  coming  b*ck  foi 
three  or  four  days,  at  the  change  since  last  'vinter.  I  trust  you 
will  find  the  old  university  (which  has  always  held  to  p'lysical 
science  and  free  thought,  and  allows,  as  she  always  has  done, 
anybody  to  believe  anything  reasonable,  provided  he  -don't  quar- 
rel with  his  neighbors)  to  be  your  firmest  standing  ground  in  these 
isles. 

"  I  say  this,  especially  now,  because  you  will  get,  I  suppose,  an 
attack  or  you  by  an  anonymous  '  Graduate  of  Cambridge,'  which  I 
found  in  the  hands  of  at  least  one  very  wise  and  liberal  man,  who 
admired  it  very  much,  but  knew  nothing  of  the  facts.  He  showed 
it  me,  and,  in  the  first  three  pages  I  opened  at  hazard,  I  pointed 
him  out  two  or  three  capital  cases  of  ignorance  or  omission,  on 
which  I  declined  to  read  any  more  of  the  book,  as  coming  from  a 
man  who  knew  not,  or  did  not  choose  to  know,  anything  about  the 
facts. 

*'  Excuse  the  bad  writing.  I  have  a  pen,  which,  if  natural  selec- 
tion influenced  pens,  would  have  been  cast  into  the  fire  long  ago  : 
but  the  disturbing  moral  element  makes  me  too  lazy  to  cast  it 
thereinto,  and  to  find  a  new  one.  1  have,  as  usual,  a  thousand 
questions  to  ask  you,  and  no  time,  nor  brain  to  ask  them  now." 

In  the  summer  he  was  refreshed  by  a  visit  to  Scotland,  which 
mcluded  some  days  of  the  British  Association  at  St.  Andrew's,  and 
a  visit  to  M.  Van  de  Weyer  at  Abergeldie  Castle.  His  visits  to 
Scotland  were  always  invigorating  and  congenial  to  him. 

TO    HIS    WIFE. 

St.  Andrew's,  Sunday .^  September  7. 

"  I  am  looking  out  on  a  glassy  sea,  with  the  sea-birds  sailing 
»j?out  close  under  the  window.  I  could  wish  to  be  at  home  seeing 
you  all  go  to  church.  Yesterday  was  a  day  of  infinite  bustle.  The 
University  and  City  received  the  British  Association,  and  feasted 
tnem.  Everything  was  very  well  done,  except  putting  me  down 
for  a  speech  against  my  express  entreaty.  However,  I  only  spoke 
five  minutes.  After  this  early  dinner  a  reception  soiree  of  all  the 
ladies  of  Fifeshire,  '  East  Neuk  ; '  we  escaped  early.  I  hate  being 
made  a  lion  of,  and  stuck  tight  to  good  Mrs.  B.  I  sat  at  dinner 
between  dear  old  Pliillips  and  Geikie,  with  Grant-Duff  next,  who 
has  asked  me  to  come  on  to  him  if  I  have  time,  and  kill  his  sal- 
mon. Hurrah  !  To-day  to  church  at  one,  and  dine  at  Principal 
'lulloch's  after,  lo  meet  Stanley,  who  is  in  great  force  in  his  beloved 


380  Charles  Kiiigsley. 

St  Andrew's,  which  he  called,  in  a  very  charming  speech  last  nigh^ 
his  second  university.  Jowett  comes  to-morrow  with  a  reading 
party.  Blackwood  (of  the  Magazine),  who  lives  close  by,  has  been 
most  civil  to  me,  wanting  me  to  come  and  stay  with  him,  etc.  ;  he 
has  told  me  much  that  is  curious  about  De  Quincey,  Hogg,  Wilson, 
&c.      He  and  B.  and  T.  have  been  trying  hard  to  make  me  preach 

in  Boyd's  Church  ;  but  I  talked  it  over  with last  night,  and  I 

was  glad  to  find  that  he  tliought  with  me,  that  it  is  quite  legal ;  but 
that  there  was  no  need  for  a  sudden  and  uncalled  for  row  with  the 
Puseyites.  I  am  most  careful  about  all  that.  Nothing  can  be 
more  pleasant  than  my  stay  here  has  been.  But  the  racket  of  the 
meeting  is  terrible;  the  talking  continual,  and  running  into  Dun- 
dee, by  two  trains,  with  the  steamer  at  Broughty  Ferry,  between, 
is  too  much  ;  so  I  have  taken  up  my  hat,  and  am  ofif  to  Tilliepio- 
nie  to-morrow ;  with  the  Provost  of  Dundee,  and  worse,  the  deai 
Red  Lion  Club  crying  to  me  to  stop  and  dine.  I  will  bring  for  M. 
home,  the  Red  Lion  Club  card,  with  the  comicalities  on  it,  which 
])oor  Edward  Forbes  designed.  These  dear  Scots  folk — I  should 
like  to  live  always  among  them  ;  they  are  so  full  of  vigorous  life 
and  heart.  I  am  very  well,  but  longing  for  the  heather.  The 
rains  here  have  been  all  but  disastrous.  All  the  corn  almost 
is  green  here.  Tell  Maurice  golf  is  the  queen  of  games,  it 
cricket  is  the  king  ;  and  the  golfing  gentlemen  as  fine  fellows  as 
ever  I  saw." 


"  Best  of  all,"  said  Dean  Stanley  in  a  letter  from  Dundee,  speak- 
ing of  the  banquet,  "was  Kingsley's  speech,  comparing  the  litera- 
ture of  science  to  camp  followers  picking  up  scraps  from  the  army, 
plundering,  begging,  borrowing,  and  stealing,  and  giving  what  they 
got  to  the  bairns  and  children  that  ran  alter  them,  ending  with  a 
very  delicate  and  well-timed  serious  turn  of  '  the  voice  of  God  re- 
vealed in  facts.'  " 

Abergeldie  Castle,  Thursday,  September  19,  1867. 

"  I  am  quite  unhappy  to-day  thinking  of  your  parting  with  ttie 
dear  boy,  for  I  can  understand,  though  my  man's  coarser  nature 
cannot  feel  as  intensely  the  pang  to  you  of  parting  with  a  bit  of 
yourself.  More  and  more  am  I  sure,  and  physiologists  are  becom- 
ing more  sure  also,  that  the  mother  is  the  more  important,  and  in  the 
case  of  the  boy  everything  ;  the  child  is  the  mother,  and  her  rights, 
opinions,  feelings,  even  fancies  abi.ut  him,  ought  to  be  first  re- 
garded. 

"  I  suppose  you  will  write  to  me  all  about  his  starting  ;  but  1 
havt:  no  fear  of  his  being  anything  but  happy,  and  Madame  V 


Recollections  by  Prof.   S hair  p.  3S1 

says  that  boys  \re  always  so  much  healthier  as  soon  as  thej  jjc  to 
school."     .... 

TO   liARY. 

(With  a  picture  of  AbergekUe.) 
"  My  Mary, 

"  This  is  the  real  castle  where  I  am,  and  in  the  bottom  of  tnat 
lower  a  real  witch  was  locked  up  before  she  was  burnt  on  Craig- 
111 -Ban,  overhead.  At  the  back  of  the  house,  under  my  window^ 
which  is  in  the  top  of  tlie  tower,  the  Dee  is  roaring,  and  the  sal- 
mons are  tiot  leaping,  and  a  darling  water-ouzel,  with  a  white 
breast,  is  diving  after  caddises.  And  as  soon  as  I  have  had  lunch- 
eon 1  am  going  to  fish  with  two  dear  little  girls,  who  catch  lots  of 
trout  with  a  fly,  and  a  real  gilly  in  a  kilt,  who,  when  he  and  I 
caught  a  sahiion  two  days  ago,  celebrated  the  event  by  putting  on 
his  Prince  of  Wales  tartan  and  uniform,  taking  an  enormous  bag- 
pipe, and  booming  like  an  elephantine  bumble-bee  all  round  the 
dinner-table,  and  then  all  a,bout  the  house.  It  is  very  pleasant — 
like  a  dream — real  stags  in  the  forest  looking  at  you,  and  real 
grouse,  and  black  cock,  and  real  princesses  walking  about  ;  but  I 
long  to  be  home  again  with  you  all,  and  that  is  truth.  Love  to 
Rose,  and  tell  her  to  write  to  me  to  Aboyne. 
"  Your  affectious  pater, 

"  C.  K." 

He  made  acquaintance  this  year  with  Professor  Shairp  of  St. 
Salvator's  College,  St.  Andrew's,  who  thus  recalls  the  meeting  which 
was  so  welcome  to  Mr.  Kingsley  : 

"Twice  only  was  I  privileged  to  meet  him,  but  of  both  meetings 
1  have  a  very  vivid  and  pleasing  remembrance. 

"The  first  was  in  (I  think)  October,  1867,  at  Benson's  Home, 
Wellington  College.  Mr.  Kingsley  came  with  your  son  Maurice  to 
dinner  ;  as  there  was  no  one  there,  but  Benson  and  myself,  we  had 
his  conversation  all  to  ourselves.  During  dinner  I  remember  his 
sajing  that  whenever  he  was  tired  or  out  of  spirits  the  book  he  most 
lurned  to  was  Carlyle's  '  French  Revolution.'  I  expressed  some  sur- 
prise at  this,  saying  that  I  thought  Carlyle's,  if  a  stimulating  atmos- 
])!iere,  was  certainly  not  a  soothing  but  a  disturbing  one  to  me.  Of 
tliis  latter  element,  the  soothing  I  mean,  I  think  I  said  I  found 
•what  came  home  to  me  far  more  in  some  of  the  best  of  Newman's 
'Paiochial  Sermons' — not  those  which  deal  with  controversial  sub- 
jects, but  those  which  dwell  on  great  universal  truths.  Mr. 
Kingsley  did  not  quite  agree,  and  we  had  a  good  deal  of  friendly 
f^iscussion  arising  out  of  this. 

"Afterwards,  in  the  drawing-room,  he  told  me  that  he  wished  tc 


382  Charles  Kings  ley. 

know  more  minutely  about  our  old  Scottish  ballads.     I  ;hink  he 
wished  it  for  something  he  had  on  hand  to  write. 

"We  sat  for  a  long  time  in  close  talk  on  the  ballads  ;  and  I  re. 
member  being  much  struck  by  his  acquaintance,  snd  still  more 
with  his  fresh  appreciation  and  insiglit  into  them — mi;ch  keener,  I 
thought,  than  that  of  most  educated  Scotchmen.  I  was  very  son'> 
when  the  time  came  that  evening  when  we  had  to  rise  and  go 
"i'he  only  other  time  I  met  him  was  in  July,  1872  (I  think),  at  a 
garden-party  given  by  the  Dean  of  Westminster  and  Lady  Augusta, 
in  the  Precincts.  When  I  met  Mr.  Kingsley,  he  came  aside  from 
the  throng,  and  we  walked  up  and  down  on  the  grass  for  some 
time.  I  remember  when  I  told  him  I  was  going  to  return  to  the 
Highlands,  he  said,  with  a  sort  of  half  sigh,  '  Ah,  yes ! — those 
Highland  hills — I  wish  I  were  among  them,'  and  spoke  with  the 
deepest  delight  of  what  he  had  seen  of  them. 

"  Both  times,  whenever  we  met,  I  felt  as  if  he  had  been  an  olc* 
friend.     This,  for  many  reasons,  which  you  may  guess." 

TO   T.  HUGHES,  ESQ. 

EVERSLEY. 

"What  is  a  National  Freedman's  Aid  Union,  which  writes  to  me, 
and  which  has  your  name  on  it  ?     What  do  they  want  to  do  ? 

"  I  am  very  glad  these  slaves  are  freed,  at  whatever  cost  of  blood 
and  treasure.  But  now — what  do  they  want  from  us  ?  There  is 
infinite  wild  land  for  them  to  till.  There  is  infinite  political  skill 
in  the  north  to  get  them  and  the  land  in  contact.  There  is  infinite 
money  in  the  north  to  furnish  them  with  tools  and  seed  ;  and  there 
is,  I  hope,  infinite  common  sense  in  the  north  to  punish  them  as 
'  strong  rogues  and  vagabonds'  if  they  won't  work. 

"  What  do  they  ask  our  money  for,  over  and  above  ?  I  am  pei- 
sonally  shy  of  giving  mine.  The  negro  has  had  all  I  ever  possessed  ; 
for  emancipation  ruined  me.  And  yet  I  would  be  ruined  a  second 
time,  if  emancipation  had  to  be  done  over  again.  I  am  no  slave- 
holder at  heart.  But  I  have  paid  my  share  of  the  great  bill,  in 
J'.arbadoes  and  Demerara,  with  a  vengeance  ;  and  don't  see  myself 
tailed  on  to  pay  other  men's  ! 

"  But  tell  me  what  will  be  done  with  this  money  when  :t  is  got, 
1'' jr  got  it  will  be,  in  plenty.  Is  it  to  be  spent  in  turning  the  south 
into  a  big  Hayti  of  savage  squatters  ?  or  as  a  rate  in  aid  to  keep 
these  poor  wretches  from  starving,  which  ought  to  be  done  by  the 
American  government.  They  have  had  the  gain.  They  have 
made  themselves  by  this  war  the  biggest  and  most  terrible  nation  on 
earth.     What  do  they  want  with  a  rate  in  aid  ?  " 

The  following  letter  may  be  val  lable  to  stammerers.  His  own 
great  mental  suflferirg  from  this  cause  made  him  most  anxious  fi^ 


How  to  Cure  Stammering.  383 

help  others.     They  were  the  rules  he  had  arrived  at  in  his  own  case 
after  )'ears  of  observation  : 


TO    MISS 


"  You  can  cure  yourself,  or  all  but  cure  yourself  in  (1  ice 
months,  without  any  one  observing  it,  if  you  will  think  ovei,  and 
practice,  what  follows,  and  which  is  a  matter  of  simple  conirijor 
sense. 

"And  you  must  try  ;  or  you  will  find  your  health  and  spirits  fail 
you.  Especially  you  will  find  your  chest  contract  from  the  eftort 
to  force  your  breath  out  by  unnatural  means. 

"Now,  you  stammer  mainly  because  your  upper  teeth,  like  mine, 
shut  over  the  lower  ones.  Therefore,  if  you  do  not  open  your 
mouth  wide,  your  breath  is  forced  out  between  your  teeth,  with 
great  exertion,  instead  of  between  your  lips.  If  the  breath  goes 
out  between  the  lips,  then  the  lips  can  act  on  it  to  form  the  con- 
sonants; and  you  can  articulate.     If  not,  you  cannot. 

"  Therefore  you  must  first  open  your  mouth  wide  when  you 
speak.  You  will  be  afraid  to  do  so  at  first,  lest  people  remark  it. 
They  will  not.  Every  one  opens  their  mouths,  and  therefore  they 
only  observe  a  person  %vho  does  not. 

"  If  you  find  it  difficult  to  speak  with  your  mouth  open  (and  it 
will  very  likely  give   you   pain  in  the  ear  at  first,  but  only  at  first), 

get  a  bit  of  cork,  cut  it  about  so  thick ■,  and  put  it  between  your 

back  teeth,  and  speak  so.  By-the-bye,  if  your  back  teeth  are  bad, 
you  ought  to  get  rid  of  them,  and  have  false  teeth.  Toothache  and 
bad  teeth  are  very  bad  for  this  complaint. 

•'  You  must  practice  reading  out  loud  to  yourself,  opening  your 
mouth  at  the  vowels  as  wide  as  you  can,  and  perhaps  keeping  the 
cork  in  at  first,  till  you  have  made  a  habit  of  it.  Begin  by  reacting 
poetry  (which  is  easiest)  the  first  thing  in  the  morning  and  then 
again  in  the  evening  before  dinner. 

"  Read  for  a  quarter  of  ar.  hour  each  time.  Then  try  prose. 
Bit  always  keep  up  reading  aloud,  for  months  to  come,  or  even  for 
y«jars. 

"  2.  You  must,  in  reading  and  in  speaking,  mind  your  stops 
You  have  been  in  the  habit  of  speaking  from  an  empty  lung.  You 
must  learn  to  speak  from  a  full  one.  For  if  there  is  no  wind  in 
the  organ-bellows,  the  pipes  will  not  sound ;  and  also,  an  empty 
lung  is  an  unwholesome  and  injurious  thing.  For  if  there  is  no  air 
in  the  lungs,  the  blood  is  not  oxygenated.  The  more  you  read 
aloud,  from  a  full  lung,  the  stronger  and  healthier,  and  more 
cheerful  you  will  feel  ;  for  air  is  the  finest  of  all  tonics. 

"  Now  how  to  do  this.  Before  beginning  to  read,  take  two  or 
three  long  full  bi  eaths.  And  also  (and  this  is  an  excellent  rule)  be- 
fore you  begin  to  speak  to  any  one,  especially  if  you  are  npryouA, 


384  Charles  Ki7igs[ey. 

take  two  or  three  breaths  and  then  open  your  mouth  and  speak. 
You  will  find  the  nervousness  go,  and  the  wor.Js  come  out,  as  b) 
miracle.  Remember  Balaam's  ass  could  not  speak,  till  his  'mouth 
was  opened.' 

"At  each  full  stop,  you  should  stop,  and  take  a  long  breath ;  at 
a  colon,  a  less  full,  at  a  semi-colon  less,  at  a  comma  less  still.  But 
keep  sacredly  to  the  habit  of  breathing  at  every  stop.  Read  and 
speak  SLOW ;  and  take  care  of  the  co?isonatits^  afid  the  vowels  will 
take  care  of  themselves. 

"And  how  to  take  care  of  the  consonants?  By  taking  care  of 
Ihe  tongue  and  lips. 

"  Now  if  you  will  watch  any  one  who  speaks  beautifully  you  will 
see,  that  the  tongue  lies  quite  quiet,  on  a  level  with  the  lower  front 
teeth,  and  never  flies  up  in  the  mouth.  You  will  see  also  that  they 
use  their  lips  a  great  deal ;  and  form  the  consonants  with  them. 
But  you  will  see  also,  that  they  keep  the  upper  lip  down  and  still, 
so  that  the  upper  front  teeth  are  hardly  seen  at  all ;  while  they 
move  the  under  lip  a  great  deal,  making  it  play  upon  the  upper. 
Watch  the  Bishop  of  Winchester  (S.  VYilberforce),  or  Bright,  or  any 
great  actress,  and  you  will  see  this. 

"  Now,  I  know  (though  I  have  not  seen)  that  your  tongue  flies 
about  in  your  mouth.  It  did  in  mine  :  it  always  does,  because  it  is 
trying  to  do  the  work  which  the  lips  should  do.  So  get  into 
the  habit  of  determinately  keeping  it  down.  You  will  find  it  easy 
enough  after  a  while.  But  at  first,  when  you  speak  and  read,  al- 
ways be  sure  that  you  can  feel  your  lower  teeth  against  the  tip  of 
your  tongue.  I  know  a  beautiful  great  lady  who  lets  her  tongue  fly 
about  in  her  mouth,  and  consequently  you  often  cannot  understand 
her. 

"Also  keep  your  upper  lip  down,  and  rignt  over  your  upper 
teeth,  and  pronounce  the  consonants  with  your  lower  lip  against 
them.  Some  people  will  pronounce  the  consonants  against  the 
upper  teeth,  instead  of  the  lip,  and  let  the  lip  fly  up.  But  it  is 
dangerous.  One  of  the  most  beautiful  people  I  know  does  that 
when  she  is  excited  ;  and  then  you  can  hardly  understand  her. 

"Practice  this  (as  I  used)  before  a  looking-glass,  to  see  that  your 
\ipper  lip  is  down  tight,  your  mouth  open,  and  your  tongue  lying 
'.ow  and  still;  and  after  a  very  little  while,  you  will  find  it  quite 
;V:isy,  because  it  is  quite  natrral ;  because  your  organs  will  have 
returned  to  their  natural  uses  and  you  will  be  speaking  like  other 
people. 

"  Lastly,  use  some  sort  of  exercises  morning  and  evening  to  ex- 
pmd  your  chest.  Raising  your  arms  over  your  head  a  few  dozer, 
times  is  as  good  as  anything — or  Indian  clubs — or  something  of 
that  kind.     Anything  to  raise  the  ribs  and  expand  the  chest. 

"  If  you  will  attend  to  these  rules,  you  can  cure  yourself.  You 
will   fail   and   fall    back    often.     Never  mind.     Y^'ou  will  succeed 


How  to   Ctire  Siamuiering.  385 

better  and  better  each  time,  till  habit  becomes  nature,  1  stam- 
mered far  worse  till  I  was  five  and  thirty,  or  forty  almost.  But  you 
are  young,  and  can  do  what  you  choose  easily. 

"  Do  not  be  discouraged  about  your  lips.  You  will  soon  acquire 
the  power  of  moving  the  under  while  you  keep  the  upper  still,  if 
you  take  pains  to  open  your  mouth  wide. 


"  Summa : — i.  Open  your  mcmth.  2.  Take  full  bieaths  and 
plenty  of  them,  and  mind  your  stops.  3.  Keep  your  tongue  quiet. 
4.  Keep  your  upper  lip  down.  5.  Use  your  lower  lip.  6.  Rea/d 
to  yourself  out  loud.     7.    Read  and  speak  s1o',t,  sieve,  slow 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

1868. 
Aged  49. 

Aliacks  C1  the  Press— Lecturei  on  Sixteenth  Century — Mr.  Longfell>w — Sir  Ilenrj 
Taylor  on  Crime  and  its  Punishment — Letter  from  Mr.  Dunn — Letter  from 
Rev.  WiUiam  Harrison. 

The  professorial  lectures  this  year  were  on  the  i6th  century,  and 
were  crowded,  as  usual;  but  the  severe  attacks  on  his  teaching  in 
two  leading  newspapers  in  the  preceding  autumn  had  inclined  him, 
for  the  honor  of  his  University  and  for  his  own  honor,  to  resign  his 
post.  But  as  he  believed  that  both  attacks  sprang  from  some  per- 
sonal feeling,  he  thought  it  best,  before  sending  in  his  resignation, 
to  consult  some  of  the  Cambridge  authorities,  on  whose  friendship 
and  impartiality  he  could  rely.  They  strongly  advised  him  to  re- 
tain the  Professorship,  and  on  their  advice,  though  the  work  was  too 
heavy  for  him,  he  determined  to  keep  it  on  for  at  least  another 
year. 

That  he  was  doing  a  work  among  the  undergraduates,  there  are 
many  who  will  testify  ;  and  at  the  day  when  the  history  of  all 
hearts  shall  be  revealed,  and  perhaps  not  till  then,  will  it  be  kno\vn 
l:ow  many  young  men  owe  the  first  dawn  of  a  manly  spiritual  lifa 
to  the  very  lectures  on  which  severe  strictures  were  passed. 

The  Rev.  J.  PuUiblank,  of  Liverpool,  thus  recalls  his  influence  on 
him  in  his  own  undergraduate  days : 

"I  revered  and  still  jevere  your  husband,  and  can  never  tellai:y 
body  how  much  I  owe  him,  until  'in  that  high  place'  I  can  sj^eak 
out  and  tell  /li/n  all.  I  find  a  few  memoranda,  written  in  a  note- 
book at  the  time,  at  Cambridge.  After  a  lecture  I  think  on  the 
French  Revolution  or  on  the  colonization  of  America, — '  We  have 
not  yet  reached,'  he  said,  '  and  I  know  not  when  we  shall  reach, 
the  true  aristocracy,  when  the  aplcrroi,  the  best  men,  shall  have  the 
governing  of  our  country  ;  but  thus  much  1  do  know,  that  we  shall 
at  last  come  to  it,  and  that  we  pray  for  it  every  time  we  use  the 


Maurice  and  Kingsley.  387 

Loid's  Prayer.  "  Thy  Kingdom  come,  thy  will  be  done  on  earth, 
as  it  is  in  Heaven,  'thy  name  be  hallowed."  '  T/ie  underscored 
words  marked  by  that  pause,  which  was  so  deeply  significant.  In 
Cr.  R.  Crotch's  rooms,  conversation  arose  about  the  delay  of  some 
reform.  Somebody  said  'public  opinion' wanted  awakening.  Prof. 
Kingsley  :  '  It  is  not  the  many  who  reform  the  world,  but  the  few, 
who  rise  superior  to  that  public  opinion  which  crucified  our  Lord 
in.iny  years  ago.' 

"  In  E.  \l.  Palmer's  (now  Professor  Palmer's)  rooms,  March  23, 
1S68,  the  talk  was  about  the  state  of  nature  and  the  natural  man, 
in  which  one  of  us  young  men  propounded  some  advanced  views. 
Professor  Kingsley  agreed,  till  an  example  was  given — viz.,  the 
N.  American  Indian.  Then  he  said,  '  No,  no,  that  I  won't  grant  ; 
the  savage  is  not  a  natural  man,  but  a  most  unnatural  beast,  play- 
ing all  manner  of  unnatural  and  unwholesome  pranks  upon  him- 
self.' Then  I  remember  he  went  on  with  what  was  a  fr.vorite  topic 
of  his,  that  civilization  seems  the  only  natural  state  for  man,  be- 
cause savage  races  are  decaying  even  before  civilization  touches 
them.  He  instanced  the  North  American  Indian,  and  said  that 
European  civilization,  bad  as  it  was,  did  not  kill  them  ;  they  were 
dying  out  before  ever  a  white  man  set  eyes  on  the  New  World. 

"  I  had  the  rare  pleasure  of  sitting  next  to  Prof  Kingsley  at 
several  of  Prof  Maurice's  lectures  on  '  Conscience.'  One  day, 
Maurice  was  speaking  of  the  inadequacy  of  Mr.  Bain's  theory  of 
conscience  as  tested  by  facts  (Lecture  III.),  Prof.  Kingsley's  fight- 
ing blood  was  evidently  roused,  and  when  Nelson's  famous  signal 
was  referred  to  (it  was  quoted,  though  it  is  not  printed  in  the  Lec- 
tures), I  had  to  shrink  into  very  small  compass,  for  a  strong  right 
hand,  shot  out  straight  from  the  shoulder,  passed  quite  as  near  as 
was  pleasant  to  my  face.  I  looked  and  saw  that  Prof  Kingsley 
could  not  see  for  tears.  Then  Maurice  went  on  to  quote  Sir 
Hastings  Doyle's  lines  on  the  '  Sinking  of  the  Birkenhead,'  and  at 
the  end  we  all  rose,  as  near  to  tears  as  to  anything  else,  and  cheered. 
Two  or  three  days  afterwards,  just  a  few  words  in  one  of  Prof. 
King-ley's  lectures  :  *  You  who  come  to  this  room  on  the  other  day3 
of  the  week,  know  from  one  who  can  teach  you,  and  me  also  — 
(God  grant  that  we  may  learn)  what  duty  is.'  " 

Happily  he  was  well  and  vigorous  this  year,  and  had  so  much 
work  on  hand  in  his  parish  and  with  his  pen,  that  he  had  not  time 
to  be  depressed  by  the  attacks  of  the  press.  He  began  his  little 
history  of  the  Hermits  for  the  "  Sunday  Library ;  "  brought  out  a 
series  of  Papers  for  Children  on  Natural  Science  in  "  Good  Words 
for  the  Young,"  called,  "  Madam  How  and  Lady  Why  ;  "  lectured 
for  the  Hampshire  Diocesan  Society  ;  preached  at  Whitehall  and 


388  Charles  Kingsley. 

St.  James's,  London,  at  Sandringham,  and  at  Windsor  ;  an  J  go(. 
through  nearly  sixteen  volumes  of  Comte's  works,  in  preparaaoE 
for  his  next  year's  lectures  at  Cambridge. 

After  his  first  introduction  to  Mr.  Longfellow,  whom  he  was  in- 
vited to  meet  at  dinner  on  his  arrival  from  America,  he  writes  to 
his  wife  : 

" ....  I  have  seen  Mr.  Longfellow.  The  dinner  list 
night  was  a  success,  and  all  went  well.  Tennyson  was  not  there, 
but  Maurice  and  the  Orator  (W.  G.  Clarke  of  Trinity),  wiio  had 
come  all  the  way  from  Cambridge.  Longfellow  is  far  handsomer 
and  nobler  than  his  portraits  make  him.  I  do  not  think  I  ever 
saw  a  finer  human  face.  I  had  an  opportunity  of»telling  him  some- 
thing of  what  we  all  felt  for  him,  and  of  the  good  work  he  had  done 
in  England,  and  to  get  a  promise  out  of  him  that  he  would  come 
and  see  us  when  he  comes  back  in  May.  He  had  three  very  pleas- 
ant gentleman-like  Americans  with  him.  I  kept  in  the  background 
and  talked  to  them."     .... 

In  the  spring  of  this  year  he  was  consulted  by  a  friend  in  the 
army,  who  was  deeply  interested  in  the  subject  of  military  educa- 
tion, on  the  state  of  Sandhurst.  A  Military  Education  Commission 
had  recently  been  proposed  by  Lord  Eustace  Cecil,  on  which  some 
officers  wished  to  see  Mr.  Kingsley  placed.  This  wish,  however, 
was  not  carried  into  effect ;  there  being  those  in  the  Government 
(at  that  time  a  Conservative  one)  who  thought  him  too  much  of  a 
reformer. 

On  receiving  a  pamphlet  from  Sir  Henry  (then  Mr.)  Taylor  on 
crime  and  how  to  deal  with  it,  addressed  to  Mr.  Gladstone,  he 
writes :  • 

TO    HENRY   TAYLOR,    ESQ. 

EvERSLEY,  December  26,  1868. 

"I  have  to  thank  you  for  your  able  and  rational  pamphlet.* 
How  far  Mr.  (xladstone  will  be  able  to  act  upon  its  suggesiions  is 
a  question  by  no  means  hopeful.  As  against  any  just  and  ration  il 
treatment  oi  crime,  two  influences  are  at  work  now. 

"  I.  The  eft'eminacy  of  the  middle  class,  which  never  having  in 
its  life  felt  bodily  pain  (unless  it  has  the  toothache)  looks  on  such 
pain  as  the  worst  of  all  evils.  My  experience  of  the  shopkeeping 
class  (from  which  juries  are  taken)  will  hardly  coincide  with  yours 


On  Crime  and  its  Punisl.ment. 


Crime  and  its  Punishnient.  389 

Vou  seem,  i^age  19,  to  think  them  a  hardier  and  less  dainty  class 
than  on<-  own.  I  find  that  even  in  the  prime  of  youth  they  shrink 
from  (end  are  often  unable  to  bear,  from  physical  neglect  of  train- 
ing) fatigue,  danger,  pain,  which  would  be  considered  as  sport  by 
an  average  public  schoolboy.  1  think  that  Mill  and  those  of  his 
school  are  aware  of  this,  and  look  on  it  with  disfavor  and  dread, 
as  an  instinct  of  that  'military  class'  whom  they  would  (whether 
justly  or  not)  destroy  ;  and  that  from  the  '  extreme  left '  of  thought 
you  would  have  heavy  opj^osition  on  this  ground,  and  also  because, 

"2,  The  tendency  of  their  speculations  is  more  and  more  to  the 
theory  thnt  man  is  not  a  responsible  person,  but  a  result  of  all  the 
circumstances  of  his  existence  ;  and  that  therefore  if  anything  or 
person  is  responsible  for  a  crime,  it  is  the  whole  circumambient 
univer"^*^.  Doubtless,  men  who  utterly  believed  this  might  be  as 
Draconic  towards  human  beings,  as  towards  wasps  and  snakes,  ex- 
terminating the  bad  as  failures  of  nature,  not  as  criminals.  But  the 
avera/ye  folk,  who  only  half  believe  this  theory,  supplement  it  by  a 
half  belief  in  the  human  responsibihty  of  a  criminal,  a  confusion 
whirh  issues  in  this  : 

"The  man  is  not  responsible  for  his  faults.  They  are  to  be  im- 
puted to  circumstance.  But  he  is  responsible  for,  and  therefore 
to  be  valued  solely  by,  his  virtues.  They  are  to  be  imputed  to 
himself  An  ethical  theorem,  which  you  may  find  largely  ilhis- 
tratcd  in  Dickens's  books,  at  least  as  regards  the  lower  and  middle 
classes. 

"  Hence  the  tendency  of  the  half-educated  masses  in  England 
will  be  (unless  under  panic)  toward  an  irrational  and  sentimental 
leniency. 

"  As  for  corporal  punishment ;  after  having  long  objected  to 
it,  even  in  the  case  of  boys,  I  have  come  round  in  the  last  ten 
years  to  a  full  concurrence  with  what  you  say  about  it  in  your 
pamphlet.* 

"  On  one  point  alone  I  hesitate  to  agree  with  you.  Direct 
legislation  against  drunkenness,  as  such,  will  be  very  difficult  to 
work  fairl)',  because  drunkenness  is  so  very  undefined  and  gradual 
a  state.  Where  the  drunkard  has  committed  a  breach  of  the  peace, 
or  used  language  likely  to  provoke  the  same,  the  course  would  be 
clear.  But  short  of  that,  I  fear  lest  the  policeman  would  become 
the  judge  of  who  was  drunk  and  who  sober;  a  power  which  would 
involve  the  chance  of  terrible  extortion  of  money  from  moneyed 
men.  On  the  other  hand,  it  seems  clear  to  me  that  any  person 
convicted  repeatedly  of  being  drunk  and  disorderly,  is  a  fit  subject 
for  ])enal  servitude." 


*  In  case  of  boys,  however,  he  cbjected  to  flogging  for  any  offences,  except 
bullying  and  cruelty,  believing  that  in  boys,  as  well  as  in  little  children,  falsehood 
is  often  tlie  resul*;  of  the  fear  of  corporal  punishment. 


39*^  Cha^des  Kingsley. 

He  made  at  this  time  the  personal  acquaintance  of  Mr.  Heni") 
Dunn,  of  Elackheath,  author  of  several  very  suggestive  works  thai 
had  interested  him  deeply,*  and  had  the  pleasure  of  receiving  hin' 
at  the  Rectory.     Mr.  Dunn  thus  recalls  their  meeting : 

*^  I  have  a  very  lively  and  most  pleasant  recollection  of  my  visit 
to  Eversley,  Especially  do  I  remember  with  abiding  interest  a 
conversation  I  had  with  your  husband  during  a  somewhat  length- 
ened walk.  We  had  been  speaking  of  the  evangelical  party  in  the 
Church  of  England,  and  of  the  unhappy  tendency  sometimes  mani- 
fested by  their  writers  to  revile  those  who  differ  from  them,  when 
Mr.  Kingsley,  as  if  glad  of  the  opportunity,  enlarged  on  their  many 
excellencies,  and  on  the  good  they  had  been  permitted  to  accom- 
plish. There  was  a  generosity  of  tone  in  all  that  he  said  which 
greatly  excited  my  admiration.  Recollecting  how  often  he  had 
himself  received  injuries  in  that  quarter,  I  felt  afresh  the  beauty 
and  force  of  tlie  apostle's  words,  'Not  rendering  railing  for  railing, 
but  contrariwise  blessing.'  Passing  on  we  came  in  sight  of  a  poor 
laboring  man  employed  in  field  work,  to  whom  Mr.  Kingsley  called 
my  attention,  and  then  said,  '  he  is  one  of  my  dissenting  parish- 
ioners, a  Baptist  and  a  high  Calvinist.  He  is  ignorant  and  often 
mistaken  in  his  interpretations  of  Scripture,  but  I  honor  him. 
He  is  a  good  man,  well  acquainted  with  his  Bible,  and  consci- 
entiously living  according  to  the  light  he  has.  Why  should  we 
quarrel  ? ' 

"This  absence  of  all  assumed  superiority  over  a  poor,  unin- 
structed,  and  perhaps  conceited  man,  and  the  glad  recognition  of 
good  in  a  class  who  are  often  provoking,  was  to  me  a  very  instruc- 
tive example.  Some  further  exchange  of  thought  on  the  lessons 
God  teaches  us  through  humiliations  occasioned  by  the  remem- 
brance of  past  sins  and  imprudences  brought  our  conversation  to  a 
cloiie,  and  left  on  my  mind  some  very  salutary  imjjressions.  I  felt 
that  Mr.  Kingsley' s  genius  and  varied  talent,  his  peculiar  rapidity 
of  thought,  and  the  incessant  excitement  of  his  mind,  were  blended 
with  a  spirituality  far  deeper  than  that  of  many  who,  however  do- 
voted,  are  but  too  ready  to  sit  in  judgment  on  others,  and  to  cen« 
sure  whatever  they  cannot  understand.  It  has  often  been  said  that 
the  best  of  a  man  is  to  be  seen  in  his  books.  But  it  is  not  always 
so.  Admirable  as  those  of  Mr.  Kingsley  are,  I,  for  one,  on  this 
occasion,  could  not  but  feel  that  their  writer  had  '  hidden  life/  uu- 
expressed  in  his  publications,  which  excelled  them  all." 

In  addition  to  the  Penny  Readings  in  the  parish,  the  Rector  hail 
opened  a  reading-room  for  the  men,  for  which  books,  bagatelle 

*  "  Destiny  of  the  Human  Race,"  "On  the  Study  of  the  Bible,"  "  The  Kinj* 

iom  of  God,'    \c. 


Memories  by  Rev.   Wm.  Harrison.         391 

boards,  and  various  games  were  provided.  He  n:ade  it  1  self-gov 
erned  club,  and  sanctioned  the  managers  having  in  a  cask  of  good 
beer,  each  glass  to  be  paid  for  on  the  spot,  in  hopes  it  would  pre- 
vent their  going  to  the  public-houses  on  their  way  home.  The 
men  drew  up  their  own  rules  under  his  eye  ;  and  for  a  winter  oj 
two  it  succeeded,  but  the  scattered  population  made  difficulties, 
and  the  attraction  of  seven  public-houses  in  a  parish  of  only  800 
inhabitants,  after  a  time  was  too  strong  for  the  young  men — th* 
reading-room  languished,  and  eventually  was  shut  up. 

His  parish  cares  were  now  shared  by  the  able  help  of  the  Rev. 
William  Harrison,  who  for  six  years  carried  out  all  his  plans  in 
church  and  parish  with  an  earnest  devotedness  which  won  him  the 
love  and  reverence  of  the  people  of  Eversley,  while  it  lifted  a 
heavy  burden  from  his  Rector's  mind,  and  gave  him  the  intimate 
companionship  he  needed  in  their  joint  labors.  For  Mr.  Harrison 
thoroughly  understood  him,  and  was  one  with  whom,  notwithstand- 
ing their  disparity  in  age,  he  could  take  sweet  and  bitter  counsel, 
according  to  the  mood  and  circumstances  of  the  moment,  and  open 
his  heart  on  all  subjects,  from  theology  and  the  great  social  ques 
tions  which  were  so  interwoven  with  his  religious  faith,  to  lighter 
ones  of  art  and  literature  ;  in  whose  hands  too  he  could  leave  the 
parish  and  his  ])ulpit  with  peace  of  mind  during  his  residences  at 
Chester  from  1870  to  1873.  ^r-  Harrison  soon  followed  him  to 
Westminster  as  Minor  Canon,  and  was  with  him  in  his  last  failing 
months,  in  his  great  sorrow,  and  on  his  death-bed.  His  own  words 
will  best  show  the  deep  love  he  bore  him. 

"  Soon  after  I  entered  upon  my  duties  as  curate  at  Eversley,  in 
May,  1868,  old  parishioners,  who  could  recall  the  days  prior  to  Mi. 
Kingsley's  residence  among  them,  began  to  tell  me  of  the  many 
great  reforms  he  had  effected  in  the  parish  in  the  years  during 
which  he  had  worked  there.  I  do  not  think  that  the  majority  of 
his  peoi)le  ever  fully  understood  that  their  rector's  words  were 
eagerly  listened  for  in  the  outside  world,  and  that  his  name  was 
known  far  and  wide.  P'or  these  things  never  affected  his  mannei 
towards  them.  They  loved  him  emphatically  for  himself;  for  what 
he  was,  and  had  been  to  them.  They  loved  him  because  he  was 
always  the  same — earnest,  laborious,  tender-hearted  ;  chivalrous  to 
every  woman  ;  gentle  to  every  child  ;  true  to  every  man  ;  ready 
for,  and  vigorous  in  every  good  work ;  stern  only  towards  vice  and 
selfishness ;  the  first  to  rejoice  in  the  success  of  the  strong  and 
healthy,  and  the  first  to  hasten  to  the  bedside  of  the  sick  and  dying 


392  Charles  Kiiigsley. 

"  He  knew  his  people  intimately :  their  proper  callir.gs,  tastes^ 
failings,  and  virtues.  He  was  interested,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  and 
not  from  the  mere  desire  to  please,  in  the  occupations  of  every 
one,  and  had  the  right  word  for  each  and  all.  Men  at  once  felt  at 
ease  with  him,  because  there  was  such  unmistakable  ring  of  sin- 
cerity, such  evident  understanding  of  their  wants,  and  such  real 
acquaintance  and  sympathy  with  what  they  were  thinking  and 
doing  in  all  that  he  said.  The  poor  could  tell  him  freely  what  they 
Telt  and  what  they  wanted,  seeing  at  once  that  he  knew  more  about 
ihem  than  men  of  his  social  standing  generally  know.  At  the  same 
Lime  there  was  a  natural  stateliness  in  his  bearing  which  precluded 
the  possibility  of  vmdue  familiarity  in  any  one  towards  him.  He  is 
too  frequently  misunderstood  to  have  been  a  mere  clerical  '  Tom 
Thurnair  ;  a  character  which  he  has  drawn  with  great  skill,  and 
with  which  certainly  he  had  many  points  of  sympathy.  That  he  was 
unfettered  by  conventional  modes  of  thought  and  speech,  and 
exhibited  at  moments  a  certain  element  of  fierceness,  with  a  detes- 
tation of  all  cant  and  unmanliness,  cannot  be  denied.  But  there 
was,  when  I  knew  him,  a  lofty  courtesy  and  abiding  seriousness 
about  him,  in  his  very  look  and  appearance,  and  in  all  he  said  and 
did,  which  marked  him  out  from  other  men,  and  secured  to  him  at 
all  times  the  respectful  attention  and  reverence  alike  of  friends  and 
strangers.     '  I  am  nothing,'  he  once  said  to  me,  *  if  not  a  Priest.' 

"  I  think  that  the  tenderness  of  his  nature  has  never  been  suffici- 
ently dwelt  upon.  In  his  warm  and  manful  love  of  physical  strength, 
and  for  capability  of  any  kind,  his  imaginative  forbearance  toward 
dulness  and  weakness  has,  as  it  seems  to  me,  been  souietimes  lost 
sight  of.  Indeed,  even  towards  wrong-doing  and  sin,  although  ter- 
ribly stern  in  their  presence,  he  was  merciful  in  an  unusual  degree. 
He  would  often  say,  after  sternly  rebuking  some  grave  offender, 
*  Poor  fellow !  I  daresay  if  I  had  been  in  his  place  I  should  have 
done  much  worse.' 

"  It  is  almost  needless  to  say  that  every  natural  object,  from  the 
stones  beneath  his  feet,  to  the  clouds  above  his  head,  possessed  a 
peculiar  and  never-failing  interest  for  him.  As  he  strode  through 
the  heather,  across  his  well-beloved  moors,  he  would  dilate  on  all 
he  saw  and  heard  in  his  vigorous  and  poetic  way.  Nature  appealed 
i:o  him  from  manj  diverse  sides.  For  not  only  would  his  mind  busy 
itself  with  the  more  scientific  ar.d  abstruse  thought  which  a  land- 
scape might  suggest,  but  he  could  find  all  an  artist's  contentment 
and  pleasure  in  the  mere  beauty  of  its  forms  and  colors.  He  had 
retained  the  freshness  of  boyhood  ;  and  approached  and  noted 
everything  with  delight.  It  was  refreshing  to  see  how  much  enjoy- 
ment he  could  extract  from  things  which  most  men  would  nevei 
perceive  or  notice ;  with  what  untiring  and  reverent  perseverance 
he  would  seek  to  know  their  raison  ifetre  ;  and  wi"^  what  a  glo'V  and 
glory  his  fruitful  imagination  clothed  everything. 


The  E  vers  ley  Stifiday.  393 

"  He  certainly  possessed  the  power  of  investing  natural  objects 
at  the  right  moment  with  his  own  thought,  either  for  joy  or  pathos, 
in  a  most  striking  manner.  Thus  I  recollect  on  one  occasion 
(amongst  the  Welsh  mountains)  the  eagerness  with  which  he  knelt 
down  by  the  side  of  a  trinkling  waterfall,  antl  said  in  a  whisper  of 
delight,  'Listen  to  the  fairy  bells  ?  '  And  thus,  again,  I  recall  with 
tender  sorrow  an  incident  that  occurred  in  one  of  the  last  walks  h< 
ever  took,  on  those  dark  winter  days  which  preceded  his  own  ill 
ness,  and  when  a  great  and  overwhelming  sorrow  was  hanging  over 
him.  We  wer.i  passing  along  one  of  the  Eversley  lanes.  Suddenly 
we  came  on  a  large  tree,  newly  cut  down,  lying  by  the  roadside.  He 
stopped,  and  looked  at  it  for  a  moment  or  so,  and  then,  bursting 
into  tears,  exclaimed,  *  I  have  known  that  tree  ever  since  I  came 
into  the  parish  ! ' 

"  The  Eversley  Sunday  was  very  characteristic  of  Mr.  Kingsley. 
It  was  not  to  him  far  above  the  level  of  every  other  day,  but  then 
his  every  other  day  was  flir  above  the  ordinary  accepted  level. 
One  thing  was  specially  observable  about  it,  the  absence  of  all  arti- 
ficial solemnity  of  manner,  and  exceptional  restraints  of  speech  and 
conduct.  Whatever  the  day  might  be  he  was  emphaticaHy  always 
the  same.  He  would  chat  with  liis  people  in  the  churchyard  before 
service  as  freely  and  as  humorously  as  he  would  have  done  in  field 
or  cottage.  The  same  vivid  untiring  interest  in  nature  which  has 
made  his  rambles  by  the  chalk  streams  of  England,  and  through 
the  high  woods  of  Trinidad,  a  source  of  perpetual  enjoyment  to  his 
readers,  would  flash  out  from  him  the  very  moment  he  left  church, 
if  anything  unusual  or  beautiful  attracted  his  attention. 

*'  Yet  during  service  his  manner  was  always  impressive  ;  and  at 
time:c,  as  during  the  celebration  of  Holy  Coiinnunion — until  the 
recent  Judgment  he  always  consecrated  in  the  Eastward  Position — 
it  rose  into  a  reverence  that  was  most  striking  and  remarkable.  It 
was  riot  the  reverence  of  a  school.  It  was  evidently  the  impulse  of 
the  moment,  and  being  so,  was  not  precise  and  systematic.  Indeed, 
his  individuality  came  out  involuntarily  at  unexpected  moments,  in 
a  way  that  occasionally  was  startling  to  those  who  did  not  kno^v 
him,  and  amusing  to  those  who  did.  One  Sunday  morning,  foi 
•nsi'ince,  in  passing  from  the  altar  to  the  pulpit  he  disappeared, 
ind  we  discovered  that  he  was  searching  for  something  on  the 
ground,  which  when  found  was  carried  to  the  vestry.  Subsequentl} 
it  came  out  that  he  was  assisting  a  lame  butterfl)',  which  by  its 
beauty  had  attracted  his  attention,  and  which  was  in  great  danger  of 
being  trodden  on.  There  was  nothing  incongruous,  nothing  of  the 
nature  of  an  effort  to  him,  in  turning  from  the  gravest  thoughts 
and  duties  to  the  simplest  acts  of  kindness,  and  observation  of  every, 
thing  around  him.  '  He  prayeth  best  who  loveth  best  all  creatures 
great  and  small.' 

"  Many  a  heart  will  cherish  through   life   dear  memories  of  th« 


394  Charles  Kings  ley. 

Eversley  iernions.  It  was  well  that  Chester  and  Westininslei 
should  grow  familiar  with  the  tones  of  his  voice  before  they  were 
silenced  for  ever.  It  was  well  that  men  and  women,  among  whom 
his  name  had  been  a  household  word,  should  be  able,  Sunday  after 
Sunday,  to  come  in  crowds  to  listen  to  his  burning  words,  in  a  place 
befitting  his  genius,  and  his  message  to  them.  But  to  my  mind  he 
was  never  heard  to  greater  advantage  than  in  his  own  village  pul- 
pit. I  have  sometimes  been  so  moved  by  what  he  then  said,  that 
I  could  scarcely  restrain  myself  from  calling  out,  as  he  poured  forth 
words  now  exquisitely  sad  and  tender,  now  grand  and  heroic ;  with 
an  insight  into  character,  a  knowledge  of  the  world,  and  a  sustained 
eloquence  which,  each  in  its  own  way,  were  matchless. 

"  Doubtless  there  is.  more  or  less  truth  in  the  assertion  that  Mr. 
Kingsley  was  a  Broad  Churchman.  But  assuredly  in  no  party 
sense  ;  and  the  only  time  I  ever  heard  him  approach  to  anything 
like  an  exact  definition  of  his  position,  he  described  himself  as  'an 
old-fashioned  High  Churchman.'  As  in  his  earlier  days,  so  in  his 
latest,  he  was  the  devoted  admirer  and  friend  of  Professor  Maurice, 
of  whom  he  used  touchingly  to  speak  as  '  my  master.'  It  was  his 
pride  to  belong  to  the  Church  of  England,  '  as  by  law  established ;'' 
— he  was  never  tired  of  quoting  the  words,  nor  of  referring  to  the 
Prayer  Book  on  all  disputed  points.  I  have  never  known  any  one 
speak  more  emphatically  and  constantly  of  the  value  of  the  Creeds, 
and  the  efficacy  of  the  Sacraments,  to  which  he  alluded  in  almost 
every  sermon  I  heard  him  preach.  But  perhaps  the  proem  of  '  The 
Saint's  Tragedy,'  '  Wake  again,  Teutonic  Father-Ages,'  is  as  true 
and  beautiful  an  index  of  his  religious  position  as  can  be  found 
The  two  most  distinctive  features  of  his  religious  teaching  were,  I 
think,  that  the  world  is  God's  world,  and  not  the  Devil's,  and  thai 
manliness  is  entirely  compatible  with  godliness..  Yet,  whilst  his 
name  will  indissolubly  be  associated  with  the  latter  doctrine,  it 
must  not  be  supposed  that  he  was  lacking  in  gentleness  and  deli- 
cate sympathy.  There  was  in  him  a  vein  of  almost  feminine  ten- 
derness, which  I  fancy  increased  as  life  advanced,  and  which 
enabled  him  to  speak  with  a  peculiar  power  of  consolation  to  the 
sad  and  suffering,  both  in  private  and  from  the  pulpit.  With  Puri- 
tanism he  had  little  sympathy ;  with  Ritualism  none.  The  form(!r 
was  to  his  rich  poetic  imagination  and  warm  chivalrous  nature  ludi- 
crously defective  as  a  theory  of  life.  The  latter  was,  in  his  opinion, 
too  nearly  allied  in  sj^irit  to  Romanism  ever  to  gain  his  supi)ort  or 
sanction  in  any  way  ;  and  of  Rome  he  was  the  most  uncompromis- 
ing opponent  I  have  ever  known.  None  of  the  great  parties  in  the 
Church — it  is  an  important  fact — could  lay  claim  to  him  exclu-' 
sively.  Intrepid  fearlessness  in  the  statement  of  his  opinions  ;  a 
dislike  to  be  involved  in  the  strife  of  tongues  ;  unexpected  points 
of  sympathy  with  all  (he  different  sections  of  the  Church ;  a  certain 
ideal  of  his  own^  both  with  regard  to  personal  holiness  and  church 


The  Study  at  Ever  shy.  395 

regimen  ;- -these  things  always  left  him  a  free  lance  in  the  ecclesi- 
astical field. 

"  The  opinion  may  be  taken  for  what  it  is  worth,  but  it  certainly 
is  my  opinion,  that  whilst  Mr.  Kingsley's  con  fictions,  daring  his 
career  as  a  clergyman,  remained  substantially  the  same,  as  may  be 
proved  by  a  careful  comparison  of  his  later  with  his  earlier  writings, 
his  belief  in  Revealed  Truth  deepened  and  increased,  and  his  re 
si)ect  for  the  constituted  order  of  things  in  Church  and  State  gre'A 
more  and  more  assured.  Yet  never,  I  fancy,  at  any  time  did  the 
great  and  terrible  battle  of  faith  and  doubt  wholly  cease  within  him. 
Probably  few  escape  the  stress  of  that  conflict  now-a-days  ;  I'.ut  I 
think  he  knew  more  about  it  than  most  of  us.  For  his  reverence 
for  what  is  called  'consistency'  was  very  limited,  and  his  mind  was 
always  busy  with  the  workings  of  those  life-problems  which  had 
left  their  mark  upon  his  brow,  and  wrought  into  his  very  manner  a 
restless  energy  Avhich  foretold  a  shortened  career.  Nevertheless, 
there  is  no  doubt  but  that  the  victory  remained  with  faith. 

"Surely  if  ever  room  could  be  haunted  by  happy  ghosts  it  would 
be  his  study  at  Eversley,  peopled  as  it  must  ever  be  with  the  bright 
creations  of  his  brain.  There  every  book  on  the  many  crowded 
shelves  looked  at  him  with  almost  human  friendly  eyes.  And  ot 
books  what  were  there  not  ? — from  huge  folios  of  St.  Augustine  * 
to  the  last  treatise  on  fly-fishing.  And  of  what  would  he  not  talk  ? 
■ — classic  myth  and  mediaeval  romance,  magic  and  modern  science, 
metaphysics  and  poetry.  West  Indian  scenery  and  parish  schools, 
politics  and  fairyland,  &c.,  &c. — and  of  all  with  vivid  sympathy, 
keen  flashes  of  humor,  and  oftentimes  with  much  pathos  and  pro 
found  knowledge.  As  he  spoke  he  would  constantly  verify  his 
words.  The  book  wanted — he  always  knew  exactly  where,  as  he 
said,  it  '  lived  ' — was  pulled  down  with  eager  hands  ;  and  he,  fling- 
ing himself  back  with  lighted  pipe  into  his  hammock,  would  read, 
with  almost  boylike  zest,  the  passage  he  sought  for  and  quickly 
found.  It  was  very  impressive  to  observe  how  intensely  he  realized 
the  words  he  read.  I  have  seen  him  overcome  widi  emotion  as 
he  turned  the  well-thumbed  pages  of  his  Homer,  or  perused  the 
tragic  story  of  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert  in  his  beloved  Hakluyt.  Nor 
did  the  work  of  the  study  even  at  such  moments  shut  him  in  en- 
tirely, or  make  him  forgetful  of  what  was  going  on  outside.  '  It's 
very  pleasant,'  he  would  say,  opening  the  door  which  led  on  to  the 
lawn,  and  making  a  rush  into  the  darkness,  '  to  see  what  is  going 
on  out  here.'  On  one  such  occasion,  a  wild  autumnal  night,  after 
the  thriUing  recital  of  a  Cornish  shipwreck  he  had  once  witnessed, 
and  the  memory  of  which  the  turbulence  of  the  night  had  conjured 
up,  he  suddenly  cried,  '  Come  out !  come  out ! '     We  followed  him 

•  Once  the  prcperty  of  Jolui  Sterling,  and  given  to  Mr.  Kingsley  by  Thoii 
Carlyle. 


396 


Charles  Kings  ley. 


into  tlie  garden,  to  be  met  by  a  rush  of  warm  driv.ng  rain  before  a 
south -\v(,'sterly  gale,  which  roared  through  the  branches  of  tlie 
neighboring  poplars.  There  he  stood,  unconscious  of  personal 
discomfort,  for  a  moment  silent  and  absorbed  in  thought,  and  then 
exclaimed  in  tones  of  intense  enjoyment,  '  What  a  night !  Drench 
ing  !  This  is  a  night  on  which  you  young  men  can't  think  or  talfe 
too  much  poetry.' 

"  Nevertheless,  with  this  appreciation  of  nature  in  her  wilder 
moods,  he  possessed  all  a  poet's  love  for  her  calmness.  Indeed  I 
think  that  anything  that  was  savage  in  aspf^ct  was  deeply  alien  to 
his  mind  ;  inasmuch  as  he  could  never  foiget  the  injurious  powers 


THE   STUDY   WINDOW,  EVEKSl.EY   RECTORY. 


t't  ctt  lurk  in  untamed  nature  to  destroy  human  life,  which  to  him 
was  more  precious  than  any  inanimate  beauty  however  sublime. 
Order  and  cultivation  were  of  supreme  value  in  his  eyes  ;  and,  from 
a  point  of  artistic  beauty,  I  believe  he  would  have  preferred  an 
Fnglish  homestead  to  an  Indian  jungle.  Nay,  even  town  scenes 
hid  a  very  great  charm  for  him  ;  and  one  bright  summer  day,  after 
.111  return  from  America,  whilst  walking  in  Kensington  Gardens,  he 
declared  that  he  considered  they  were  as  beautiful  as  anything  he 
had  seen  in  the  New  World.  And  again,  looking  at  some  photo- 
giaphs  of  bleak  and  barren  mountain  ranges,  he  said  to  a  young 
paintei  wlio  was  admiring  their  grandeur—'  Yes  ;  paint  tliem,  ancf 
send  the  picture  to  the  Academy,  and  call  it,  'The  Abomiuatio 


Ho7iie  Life.  397 

uf  Desolation  ! '  Yet,  withal,  tlic  descriptions  of  scenery  which 
are  so  profusely  scattered  up  and  down  his  pages  fully  testify  to 
his  ahnost  unique  powers  of  appreciating  nature  in  all  her  aspects 
and  circumstances,  I  sometimes  wondered  whether  his  scientific 
knowledge  had  not  dulled  the  splendor  and  dissipated  much  of  the 
mystery  that  fill  the  world  for  the  ^'oet's  heart.  I  once  ventured. 
to  hint  soiuething  of  the  sort  to  him.  A  very  sad  and  tender  look 
cams  over  his  face,  and  for  a  little  while  he  was  silent.  Then  lit 
said,  speaking  slowly, — '  Yes,  yes  ;  I  know  what  you  mean  ;  it  is 
so.  But  there  are  times — rare  moments — when  nature  looks  out 
at  me  again  with  the  old  bride-look  of  earlier  days.' 

*'  I  should  not  venture  to  speak  of  his  home-life,  unless  permis- 
sion had  been  granted  me  to  do  so,  feeling  that  it  is  die  most  diffi- 
cult of  tasks  to  lift  the  veil  from  any  family  life  without  marring  its 
sacredness  ;  and  that  it  is  wholly  beyond  my  power  to  preserve  in 
words  the  living  '  sweetness  and  light '  which  pervaded  his  house- 
hold. That  household  was  indeed  a  revelation  to  me,  as  T  know 
it  was  to  others  ; — so  nobly  planned  and  ordered,  so  earnest  in  its 
central  depths,  so  bright  upon  its  surface.  Many,  now  scattered 
far  and  wide,  must  remember  how  picturesque  the  rectory  itself 
was.  Even  a  stranger  passing  by  would  have  stopped  to  look  at 
the  pleasant  ivy-grown  house,  with  its  long,  sloping,  dark  roofs,  its 
gables,  its  bow-windows  open  to  sun  and  air,  and  its  quaint  mixture 
of  buildings,  old  and  new.  And  who  among  his  friends  will  ever 
cease  to  remember  the  lawn,  and  glebe-land  sweeping  upward 
towards  the  half-cultivated,  half-wild  copse  ;  through  which  the 
hidden  path,  henceforth  sacred  ground  to  those  who  loved  him, 
leads  up  and  out  to  Hartford  Bridge  Flats.  Marked  features  in 
the  scene  to  them,  and  now  widely  known,  were  the  grand  Scotch 
firs  on  the  lawn,  under  which  on  summer  evenings  I  have  seen 
many  sweet  pictures,  and  heard  many  noble  words,  and  the 
branches  of  which  now  wave  solemnly  above  his  last  resting-place. 
The  little  church,  though  not  remarkable  for  beauty  in  any  way, 
seen  here,  through  the  bending  boughs  of  the  firs,  and  over  the 
laurel  bank,  through  which  the  steps  led  from  the  house,  always 
made  a  pleasant  corner  in  the  picture  in  my  eyes,  with  its  red 
biick  tower,  and  four  vanes  atop,  one  of  which  persistently  dis- 
agieed  with  its  neighbors, — 'a  Nonconformist  from  its  birth,' as 
Mr.  Kingslej  humorously  said. 

"  Here — in  this  beautiful  home-scene,  and  truly  ideal  English 
Rectory — was  the  fountain-head — as  I  certainly  think,  and  as  he 
often  said,  of  all  his  strength  and  greatness.  Indeed,  great  as  I 
knew  him  to  be  in  his  books,  I  found  him  greater  at  his  own  fii2- 
side.  Home  was  to  him  the  sweetest,  the  fairest,  the  most  roman- 
tic thing  in  life  ;  and  there  all  that-  was  best  and  brightest  in  hiuj 
shone  with  steady  and  purest  lustre  " 


CHAPTER   XXVI. 

1869-1 370. 
Aged  50-51. 

Rfsignation.  of  Professorship — Women's  Suffrage  Question — Letters  to  Mr, 
Maurice,  John  Stuart  Mill — Canonry  of  Chester — Social  Science  Mcctijig  at 
Bristol — Letter  from  Dr.  E.  Blackwell — Medical  Education  for  Women- 
West  Indian  Voyage — Letters  from  Trinidad — Return  Home — Eversley  • 
Changed  Place — Flying  Columns — Heath  Fires — First  Residence  at  Chestel 
— Botanical  Class — Field  Lectures — Women's  Suffrage — Franco-Prussian 
War — Wallace  on  Natural  Selection — Matthew  Arnold  and  Hellenism. 

The  year  1869,  which  closed  his  professorial  work  at  Cambridge^ 
saw  the  beginning  of  a  new  chapter  of  his  life  as  Canon  of  Chester. 
It  was  a  year  of  severe  intellectual  work  and  great  activity.  He 
decided  to  resign  the  Professorship,  and  gave  his  last  series  of 
lectures  at  Cambridge.  He  completed  his  volume  on  the  Hermits 
for  the  Suoday  Library  course.  The  "  Lessons  on  Earth  Lore 
for  Children,  Madam  How  and  Lady  Why,"  which  had  been 
coming  out  in  "  Good  Words  for  the  Young,"  was  published  as  a 
volume.  He  wrote  an  articJe  in  "  Macmillan's  Magazine,"  on 
Women  and  Politics,  to  help  the  question  which  was  just  then 
brought  into  discussion.  He  attended  the  first  "  Woman's  Suf- 
frage" Meeting  in  London  with  Mr.  J.  Stuart  Mill,  He  gave  two 
lectures*  on  "Thrift"  and  "Breath"  in  a  course  for  ladies,  at 
Winchester,  arranged  by  Mrs.  C.  A.  Johns,  the  wife  of  his  old 
fiiend  and  tutor.  He  made  speeches  at  various  Industrial  and 
Mechanics'  Listitutions  in  the  diocese.  He  joined  the  Education 
League,  and  was  elected  President  of  the  Education  Section  of  the 
Social  Science  Congress  at  Bristol.  He  lectured  on  Natural  Sci- 
ence to  the  boys  of  Wellington  College  and  Clifton  College.  His 
parish  piospered  ;  the  Penny  Readings  and  entertainments  for  th« 
laborers,  greatly  helped  by  the  musical  talent  of  his  curate,  became 
more  popular,   once,   as  many  as    one   hundred   and  fifty  of  his 

*  Since  published  in  "  Health  and  F,du'»ti>n  " 


To  Mr.  Mauyi:e  07t  Overwork.  399 

parishionei'i  being  present  at  the  National  School.  I'he  resigna- 
tion of  his  i")rofessorial  work  relieving  his  mind  from  a  heavy  load 
of  responsibility,  and  the  prospect  of  a  voyage  to  the  West  Indies, 
on  the  invitation  of  Sir  Arthur  Gordon,  then  Governor  of  Trinidad, 
fulfilling  one  of  the  dreams  of  his  life,  all  helped  to  carry  hin^ 
ihrough  the  active  labors  and  anxieties  of  the  year. 

TO    REV.    F.    D.    MAURICE. 

EvERSLEY,  Jaiiitary  i6,  1869. 

"Your  letter  comforted  me,  for  I  had  heard  you  were  ill.  You 
must  rest  and  take  care  of  yourself,  and  must  not  do  (as  I  hear 
you  do)  other  people's  work  whenever  you  are  asked.  You  have 
enough,  and  too  much  to  do  of  your  own.  And  either,  i.  You  are 
necessary  to  Providence  ;  and  then  you  have  no  right  to  kill  your- 
self by  overwork ;  or,  2.  You  are  not  necessary  to  Providence  ; 
and  then  you  have  no  need  to  kill  yourself  by  overwork.  I  put 
that  dilemma  to  you  in  all  seriousness,  and  leave  you  to  escape  it 
if  you  can.  It  was  a  real  pleasure  to  me  to  hear  from  you  that 
you  bad  read  my  clumsy  and  silly  little  papers.*  I  wished  to 
teach  children — my  own  especially — that  the  knowledge  of  nature 
ought  to  make  them  reverence  and  trust  God  more,  and  not  less 
(as  our  new  lights  inform  us).  And  they  are  meant  more  as 
prolegomena  to  natural  theology,  than  as  really  scientific  papers, 
though  the  facts  in  them  are  (I  believe)  true  enough.  But  I  know 
very  little  about  these  matters,  and  cannot  keep  myself  '  an 
courant^  of  new  discoveries,  save  somewhat  in  geology,  and  even 
in  that  I  am  no  mineralogist,  and  palaeontologist.  Science  is 
grown  too  vast  for  any  one  head. 

"We  are  going  soon  to  Cambridge.  At  first  we  stay  at  Barton 
with  the  Bunburys,  I  coming  to  and  fro  for  my  lectures.  R.  and  I 
now  mean  to  sail  for  the  West  Indies,  if  God  permits  (for  one 
must  say  that  very  seriously  in  such  a  case),  by  the  April  mail ; 
but  our  plans  may  alter.  Ah  !  that  you  were  coming  too,  and 
could  be  made  to  forget  everything  for  a  while,  save  flowers  and 
ikies  and  the  mere  sensation  of  warmth,  the  finest  medicine  in  the 
world  ! 

"  What  you  say  about  not  basing  morality  on  psychology  I  am 
1  i03t  thankful  for.  I  seem  to  get  a  vista  of  a  great  truth  far  away 
i'ar  away  enough  from  me.  Heaven  knows.  But  this  I  know  :  thaf 
I  want  to  re-consider  many  things,  and  must  have  time  to  do  it 
that  I  should  like  to  devote  the  next  twenty  years  to  silence, 
thought,  and,  above  all,  prayer,  without  which  no  spirit  car 
breathe.'' 

•  *' Madam  How  and  Lady  Why,"  dedicated  to  his  son  Grenville. 


400  Charles  Kings ky. 

His  concluding  lectures  at  Cambridge  were  crowded  ;  the  las< 
one  was  on  Comte, 

TO   THE    MASTER   OF   TRINITY    COLLEGE. 

April  I,  1869. 

"I  am  bound,  after  your  kind  advice  and  sympathy  in  the  nu-.t- 
t«  of  the  professorship*  (which  I  am  not  likely  to  forget),  to  tell 
^'ou  that  I  have  obtained  leave  from  the  Queen  to  resign  it  at  the 
end  of  the  academic  year,  and  have  told  Mr.  Gladstone  as  mrch, 
and  had  a  very  kind  reply  from  him.  My  brains,  as  well  as  .^ziy 
purse,  rendered  this  step  necessary.  I  worked  eight  or  nine  months 
hard  for  the  course  of  twelve  lectures  which  I  gave  last  term,  and 
was  half-witted  by  the  time  they  were  delivered  ;  and  as  1  have  to 
provide  for  children  growing  up,  I  owe  it  to  them  not  to  waste 
time  (which  is  money)  as  well  as  brain,  in  doing  what  others  can 
do  better.  Only  let  me  express  a  hope,  that  in  giving  up  this  ap- 
pointment 1  do  not  give  up  the  friendships  (especially  yours)  which 
I  have  found  at  Cambridge,  a  place  on  which  1  shall  ever  look 
with  hearty  affection  ;  and  that  when  1  come  up  (which  I  shall  do 
as  often  as  I  can  find  an  excuse)  I  may  come  and  see  you  and 
Mrs.  Thompson." 

He  left  Cambridge  with  feelings  of  deep  gratitude  to  men  of  all 
classes  in  the  University,  having  received  nothing  but  kindness  on 
all  sides  from  the  authorities  down  to  the  undergraduates  ;  dissatis- 
fied only  with  his  own  work,  but  thankful  to  have  had  his  knowl- 
edge of  men,  especially  young  men,  enlarged  by  the  experience  of 
the  last  nine  years,  and  glad  to  have  more  time  frona  henceforth  to 
devote  to  physical  science. 

TO    JOHN    STUART    MILL,     ESQ. 

EvERSLEY,  June  3,  1S69. 
"  I  have  had  the  honor  of  receiving  '  from  the  author  '  your  bo(  k 
on  the  'Subjection  of  Woman.'  It  is  not  for  me  to  complimenl 
you.  I  shall  only  therefore  say,  in  thanking  you  for  it,  that  it 
seems  to  me  unanswerable  and  exhaustive,  and  certain,  from  its 
tnoderation  as  well  as  from  its  boldness,  to  dj  good  service  in  this 
good  cause.  It  has,  been  a  deep  pleasure  to  me  to  find  you,  in  many 
l^assage.'s  in  which  you  treat  of  what  marriage  ought  to  be,  and  what 
marriage  is,  corroborating  opinions  whicli  have  been  for  more 
than  twenty-five  years,  the  guides  and  safeguards  of  my  own  best 
life. 

*  Tavo  years  before,  when  he  offered  to  re."?ign,  and  Dr.  Thompson  wished  him 
lo  retain  tlie  office. 


To  yohn  Stttart  Mill  on  Woman.         401 

"  I  snail  continue  to  labor,  according  to  my  small  ability,  m  the 
direction  which  you  point  out ;  and  all  the  more  hopefully  oecause 
your  book  has  cleared  and  arranged  much  in  my  mind  which  \ra? 
confused  and  doubtful." 

EVERSLEY,  June  17,  1869. 

"Your  kind  letter  gave  me  much  pleasure.  I  shall  certainl) 
attend  the  meeting  ;  and  I  need  not  say,  that  to  pass  a  night  undei 
your  roof  will  be  an  honor  which  I  shall  most  gratefully  accept. 

"I  wish  much  to  speak  with  you  on  the  whole  question  of 
woman.  In  five  and  twenty  years  my  ruling  idea  has  been  that 
which  my  friend  Huxley  has  lately  set  forth  as  common  to  him  and 
Comte  ;  that  '  the  reconstruction  of  society  on  a  scientific  basis  is 
not  only  possible,  but  the  only  political  object  much  worth  striv- 
ing for.'  One  of  the  first  questions  naturally  was.  What  does 
science — in  plain  English,  nature  and  fact  (which  I  take  to  be  the 
acted  will  of  God) — say  about  woman,  and  her  relation  to  man  ? 
And  1  have  arrived  at  certain  conclusions  thei'eon,  which  (in  the 
face  of  British  narrowness)  I  have  found  it  wisest  to  keep  to  my- 
self. That  I  should  even  have  found  out  what  I  seem  to  know 
without  the  guidance  of  a  woman,  and  that  woman  my  wife,  I  dare 
not  assert  :  but  many  years  of  wedded  happiness  have  seemed  to 
show  me  that  our  common  conclusions  were  accordant  with  the 
laws  of  things,  sufficiently  to  bring  their  own  blessing  with  them. 
I  beg  you  therefore  to  do  me  the  honor  of  looking  on  me,  though 
(I  trust)  a  Christian  and  a  clergyman,  as  completely  emancipated 
from  those  prejudices  which  have  been  engrained  into  the  public 
mind  by  the  traditions  of  the  monastic  or  canon  law  about  women, 
and  open  to  any  teaching  which  has  for  its  purpose  the  doing 
woman  justice  in  every  respect.  As  for  speaking  at  the  meeting, 
my  doing  so  will  depend  very  much  on  whether  there  will  be,  or  will 
not  be,  newspaper  reporters  in  the  room.  I  feel  a  chivalrous  dis- 
like of  letting  this  subject  be  lowered  in  print,  and  of  seeing  pearls 
cast  before  swine — with  the  usual  result. 

"  Mrs.  Kingsley  begs  me  to  add  the  expression  of  her  respect 
for  you.  Her  oj)inion  has  long  been  that  this  movement  must  be 
I'urthered  rather  by  men  than  by  the  women  themselves." 

Tliis  visit  was  one  of  great  interest  to  Mr.  Kingsley.  He  was  as 
much  struck  with  Mr.  Mill's  courtesy  as  with  his  vast  learning — he 
had  'he  manners  of  the  old  school,  he  said. 

"  When  I  look  at  his  cold,  clear-cut  face,"  he  remarked  to  Dr 
Carpenter,  "  I  thmk  there  is  a  whole  hell  beneath  him,  of  whici" 
he  kr.ows  nothing,  and  so  there  may  be  a  whole   heaver  above 
hiui.     .     .     ." 
26 


402  Charles  Kingsley. 

TO    LIONEL   TOLLEMACHE,    E£(> 

June,   i86t. 

"  Many  thanks  for  the  '  Fortnightly,'  and  your  very  amusing  and 
well-written  article  on  Egotism.  I  trust  it  will  not  corrupt  n,e  ; 
for  I  dread  any  egotism  on  my  part,  as  the  root  which  may  blossom 
out  into  the  most  unexpected  forms  of  actual  wrong-saying  and 
iloing.  I  suppose  I  am  too  great  a  fool  to  be  trusted  to  talk  about 
niyself.  If  so,  it  is  all  the  better  that  I  should  keep  the  fact  in 
mind.  Are  you  aware  that  when  '  Pepys's  Diary '  was  tished  out 
of  our  Pepysian  library  at  Magdalene,  much  of  it  was  found  to  be 
so  dirty,  that  the  editors  had  to  omit  it  ?  He  was  a  foul-minded 
old  dog.  Our  only  record  of  him  (beside  the  curious  library  he 
left  us)  is,  I  believe  :  '  Mr.  Pepys,  having  been  found  by  y^  proc- 
tors last  night  disguised  in  Hquor,  was  admonished  not  to  offend  in 
y°  like  again.' 

"  The  whole  number  is  very  valuable,  especially  so  to  me,  for 
Huxley's  article.*  I  don't  know  whether  you  take  an  interest  in 
that  matter.  In  my  opinion  Huxley  is  thoroughly  right :  at  least 
he  interprets  Comte  exactly  as  I  have  been  in  the  habit  of  inter 
preting  him." 

On  the  13th  of  August  Mr.  Kingsley  received  the  following 
letter  from  Mr.   Gladstone  : 

"  I  have  much  pleasure  in  proposing  to  you  that  you  should 
accept  the  Canonry  of  Chester,  vacated  by  the  appointment  of 
Dr.  Moberly  to  the  See  of  Salisbury,  and  if  you  agree,  I  need  not 
impose  on  you  any  obligation  of  even  temporary  secrecy,  as  I 
know  that  the  act  will  be  very  agreeable  to  her  Majesty. 

"  The  cathedral  of  (.'hester  is  under  an  energetic  Dean,  and  nave 
services  are  now  carried  on  in  it  with  excellent  eftect." 


The  canonry  was  gratefully  accepted,  and  many  were  the  con' 
gratulations  received. 

EVERSLEY,  August  20,   1869. 

"It  is  very  kind,"  said  Mr.  Kingsley  to  his  friend  and  neighboi 
Afr.  Raikes  Currie,  "of  you  to  congratulate  me  thus  ;  but  kindness 
i.s  your  element,  and  a  very  wholesome  element  it  is,  for  both  parties 

*  On  tbe  Scientific  Aspects  of  Positivism,  in  which  he  speaks  of  Comte's  Ideal, 
a>s  stated  by  himself,  being  "  Catholic  organization  withou  Catholic  doctrine,  01 
in  other  words,  Catholicism  m.nus  C'lristianity  "  Fortnightly  I^^view,  New 
Series,  No.  xxx.,  p.  657. 


At  the  Social  Science  Congress.  403 

concerned  in  it.     You  never  were  more  right  than  when  )'ou  said 

that  I  siiould  not  Hke  to  be  a  bishop And  even  a 

deanery  I  shrink  from  ;  because  it  would  take  nie  away  from  Evers- 
ley ;  the  home  to  which  I  was  ordained,  where  I  came  when  I  was 
married,  and  which  I  intend  shall  be  my  last  home  :  for  go  where  I 
will  in  this  hard-working  world,  I  shall  take  care  to  get  my  last  sleep 
in  Eversley  clmrch-yard." 

Bishop  Wilberforce  (then  of  Oxford)  wrote  to  him  at  once  : 

"  I  am  quite  certain  of  your  great  powers  being  used  on  the  side 
of  that  Truth  which  so  many,  as  it  seems  to  me,  in  their  very  longing 
to  support  it,  distrust  and  dishonor. 

"May  God  give  you  many  years  of  usefulness,  and  a  happy  ending 
of  your  highly  vital  life." 

In  October  he  went  to  Bristol  to  take  his  share  in  the  Social 
Science  Congress,  as  President  of  the  Educational  Section,  at  which 
Mr.  Henry  de  Bunsen  read  a  valuable  paper  on  "  How  can  the 
State  best  help  in  the  Education  of  the  Working  Classes  ?  "  and 
in  a  letter  to  his  mother  the  baroness,  thus  speaks  of  meeting  Mr. 
Kingsley  : 

"  I  was  at  the  Clifton  College,  the  new  public  school,  and  a  most 
flourishing  one,  having  already,  though  only  in  its  fifth  year,  three 
nundred  and  sixty  boys,  and  was  the  guest  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Perceval, 
the  head  master.  Charles  Kingsley  and  his  wife  were  there.  Kings- 
ley  was  most  hearty  and  charming,  especially  when  I  got  used  to 
his  stammering  speech  (which  entirely  disappears  when  he  has  to 
speak  or  read  in  public).  ...  To  me  it  was  a  time  full  of  in- 
terest. I  drove  Kingsley,  on  Wednesday  afternoon,  between  two 
thunderstorms,  to  Blaise  Castle Aunt  L was  de- 
lighted with  our  visit.  Kingsley  was,  I  must  say,  charming.  He 
is  a  great  lover  of  art,  and  understands  it  thoroughly.     He  is  a  still 

greater  lover  of  trees  and  Nature,  and  told  Aunt  L that  it  was 

■i^'orth  while  coming  the  whole  way  from  Eversley  to  see  her  two 
wondeiful  trees  from  Japan,  the  Salisburia,  and  the  Sophora  Japori- 
ica Wednesday  was  the  opening  address  of  the  Con- 
gress from  Sir  Stafford  Northcote.  We  dined  one  night  at  the 
lewis  Frys',  where  Sir  S.  was  staying,  and  he  and  Kingsley  told 
charming  Devonshire  stories  in  turn  !  It  was  a  wonderful  treat,  for 
both  could  imitate  the  language  and  tone  exactly.  On  Thursday 
we  had  a  most  interesting  discussion  in  the  Education  Department, 
as  to  how  far  it  would  be  possible  to  have  'religious  instruction,' 
without  entering  into  '  dogmatic  differences,'  and  therefore  ha/ing 
schools  admitting  every  denomination,  and  leaving  to  ])arents  an^ 


404  Charles  Kings  ley. 

ministers  the  specific  instruction  in  their  several  deiiominalicns 
On  Friday,  Mr.  Kingsley  gave  us  as  stirring  an  address  on  educar 
tion  (in  the  highest  and  best  and  most  comprehensive  sense  of  the 
word),  female  and  male,  compulsory  and  for  all  classes,  as  ever  was 
given.  Some  nine  hundred  people  (of  intelligent  classes — no  work- 
ing classes)  were  present ;  and  he  electrified  his  audience  by  his 
earnestness  and  liberality,  praising  the  efforts,  not  only  of  all  min- 
is! srs  of  religion,  and  of  societies  like  the  'National,'  and  'British 
and  Foreign,'  but  also  of  the  Society  of  Friends,  as  being  foremost 

in  education 

"  On  Saturday  morning,  at  nine  o'clock,  we  had  a  great  treat  in 
hearing  an  address  from  Mr.  Kingsley  to  the  three  hundred  and 
sixty  bo)S  of  Clifton  College  School,  chiefly  on  study  combined 
with  scientific  observation  in  other  branches  of  learning ;  so  as  to 
give  them  something  to  do  in  their  spare  hours,  and  to  carry  on 
in  their  holidays,  in  making  collections  of  all  kinds  (avoiding  cruelty 
to  birds,  and  wholesale  destruction  of  nests  and  eggs),  and  that  not 
for  themselves,  but  for  a  general  museum  belonging  to  their  school. 
This  would  avoid  much  destruction.  '  Eyes  and  no  Eyes,'  played 
51  prominent  part  in  the  address." 

His  inaugural  address,  which  made  a  profound  sensation  at  the 
time,  was  printed  by  the  League,  and  about  100,000  copies  dis- 
tributed. 

He  had  lately  joined  the  Education  League  with  several  other 
clergymen,  who>  hke  himself,  were  nearly  hopeless  about  a  compul- 
sory National  Education,  in  which  measure  alone  they  saw  hope 
for  the  masses  ;  but  he  subsequently  withdrew,  and  gave  his  warm 
allegiance  to  Mr.  Forster's  Act,  for  the  same  reasons  as  his  friend, 
a  London  Rector,  who  says  : 

"■  I  ceased  to  take  any  interest  in  the  League  after  it  had  done 
its  work  ;  that  of  rousing  a  reluctant  Government  to  do  something. 
That  something  the  Government  did  by  Mr.  Forster's  help ;  and 
after  the  Elementary  Act  was  passed  the  League  to  me  was  dead. 
1 1  had  done  its  work,  and  that  a  good  work.  So  far  as  I  can 
judge  of  its  work  since,  I  think  that  work  such  that  a  liberal  cler- 
gyman cannot  approve  it.  It  has  become  narrow  and  sectarian, 
while  pretending  lo  be  CathoHc  and  liberal,  and  its  speakers  anH 
supporters  are  generally  unjust  to  the  National  Church." 

At  this  Congress,  the  subject  of  the  Medical  Education  o' 
Women  was  discussed,  and  he  made  acquaintance  with  Dr.  Eliza- 
abeth  Blackwell,  who  had  herself  taken  a  medical  degree,  and  had 


Medical  Degrees  to   Woi/ien.  405 

piactised  for  twenty-five  years  as  a  consulting  physician  Iti  America, 
She  was  afterwards  a  welcome  guest  at  Eversley  and  Chester,  and 
lias  kindly  contributed  her  recollections  of  these  visits. 

'  My  dear  Mrs.  Kings  ley, 

"  I  think  that  no  sketch  of  Canon  Kingsley's  life  would  be 
complete  without  some  record  of  his  constant  and  even  enthusiastic 
interest  in  the  subject  of  the  medical  education  of  women.  I 
never  shall  forget  the  words  he  spoke  to  me,  when  (returning  to 
my  native  land  after  a  long  absence)  I  met  him  for  the  first  time  in 
iJristol. 

"  '  You  are  one  of  my  heroes  ! '  was  the  greeting — words  of  tec- 
ognition  which  filled  me  with  gratitude,  and  seemed  a  rich  reward 
for  a  life  of  effort.  He  then  proceeded  to  tell  me  of  the  profound 
interest  with  which,  for  many  years,  he  had  watched  the  gradual 
growth  of  woman's  endeavor  to  obtain  the  advantages  of  a  thor- 
ough medical  education  ;  and  how,  '  from  his  inmost  soul,  he  gave 
it  a  hearty  God-speed.'  Through  the  years  that  followed,  he 
showed  himself  a  constant  and  ardent  friend  of  this  noble  cause; 
always  ready  to  give  information  or  advice  in  relation  to  any  plans 
for  its  advancement.  The  old  fir  woods  of  Eversley,  and  the  dis- 
tant mountain  views  of  Chester,  will  always  be  associated  in  my 
mind  with  the  long  walks  we  took  together;  when,  with  wonder- 
ful earnestness  and  eloquence,  he  poured  forth  the  treasures  cf 
his  experience  for  my  guidance,  listening  eagerly  to  every  sign  of 
progress,  carefully  considering  every  suggestion ;  anxious  onl/, 
with  the  whole  force  of  his  nature,  to  give  wisdom  and  support 
to  one  who  was  carrying  on  this  cherished  work  of  his.  Durii.g 
the  few  years  that  I  knew  him,  he  was  always  ready,  no  matter 
how  busy  or  how  tired  he  might  be,  to  give  thought  and  aid  to  any 
plan  for  carrying  on  the  work.  Only  a  few  weeks  before  he  left 
us,  in  December  of  1S74,  I  saw  him  several  times  at  the  Cloisters, 
Westminster,  in  relation  to  a  proposed  plan  for  securing  medical 
degrees  to  women.  Although  his  health  was  broken,  and  he  was 
suffering  from  over-work,  he  entered  upon  this  subject  with  his 
customary  enthusiasm  ;  gave  it  his  most  careful  consideration,  and 
agreed  (with  your  cordial  approbation,  dear  Mrs.  .Kingsley)  to  be 
come  chairman  of  the  committee  which  was  being  formed  for  the 
purpose  of  carrying  out  this  important  measure.  J  have  full  faith 
that  the  accomplishment  of  no  providential  work  can  be  really 
hindered  by  the  departure  of  any  individual  worker ;  but  I  know 
that  our  cause  has  safifered  a  heavy  loss  in  the  death  of  your  noble 
husband ;  and  with  grateful  remembrance  I  offer  this  record  of  his 
large-hearted  and  intelligent  sympathy. 

*'  1  remain,  my  dear  Friend,  affectionately  yours, 

El  IZABETH  BlACKWELI.,  M.D." 


4o6  Charles  Kiitgsley. 

In  November  he  went  down  to  Chester  to  be  installed  as  Car.oii, 
and  was  most  kindly  received  by  the  Dean  and  the  Chapter,  with 
whom  for  the  next  three  years  he  worked  so  harmoniously. 

On  the  2nd  of  December,  he  and  his  daughter  embarked  at 
Southampton  for  the  West  Indies. 

It  would  be  a  twice  told  tale  to  those  who  have  read  his  "At 
J.ait "  to  do  more  than  glance  at  his  account  of  the  voyage  and  itt 
new  experiences,  the  historic  memories  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  Sir 
Richard  (irenville,  and  many  of  England's  forgotten  worthies  woke 
lip  by  the  sight  of  the  Azores,  and  of  all  he  felt  at  finding  himself 
orf  the  track  of  the  "  old  sea  heroes,"  Drake  and  Hawkins,  Carlile 
and  Cavendish,  Cumberland,  Preston,  Frobisher,  and  Duddely, 
Keymis  and  Widdon— and  of  the  first  specimen  of  the  Gulf-weed 
which  brouglit  back  "the  memorable  day  when  Columbus's  ship 
plunged  \icx  bows  into  the  tangled  ocean  meadow,  and  the  sailors 
were  ready  to  mutiny,  fearing  hidden  shoals,  ignorant  that  they 
iiad  four  miles  of  blue  water  beneath  their  keel," — and  of  the  awe 
which  the  poet  and  the  man  of  science  must  needs  feel  at  that  first 
sight  of  the  "  Sargasso  sea,  and  of  the  theories  connected  with  it— 
not  wholly  impossible — of  a  sunken  Atlantic  continent — and  of 
his  enjoyment  of  the  glorious  cloudland,  and  the  sudden  sunsets 
when 

'  The  sun's  rim  dips,  the  stars  rush  out, 
At  one  stride  comes  the  dark  ; ' 

to  be  succeeded  after  balmy  nights  by  the  magnificent  pageant  of 
tropic  sunlight " — and  of  the  first  sight  of  the  New  World,  and  the 
look  out  for  Virgin  Gorda,  one  of  those  numberless  islands  which 
Columbus  discovered  on  St.  Ursula's  day,  and  of  the  arrival  at  St, 
I'homas,  with  its  scarlet  and  purple  roofs  piled  up  among  orange 
tiees,  and  the  first  glimpse  of  a  tropic  hill-side.  "  Oh!  for  a  boat 
to  get  into  that  paradise  ! "  and  how  the  boat  was  got ;  and  how 
lie  lenpt  out  on  a  sandy  beach — and  then  the  revelation  of  tropic 
i'egetation,  and  the  unmistakable  cocoa-nut  trees,  and  the  tall  aloes, 
and  tlie  grey-blue  Cerei,  and  the  bright  deep  green  of  a  patch  of 
Guinea  grass  ; — and  the  astonishment  which  svallowed  up  all  othei 
emotions  at  the  wonderful  wealth  of  life — and  the  "  effort,  at  first 
in  vain,  to  fix  our  eyes  on  some  one  dominant  or  typical  form, 
while  every  form  was  clamoring  as  it  were  to  be  looked  at,  and  a 
fresh  Dryad  gazed  out  of  every  bush,  and  with  wooing  eyes  asked 


Weslwar.i  Ho  !  407 

to  be  wooed— and  tlie  drooping  boughs  of  the  shoregiape  with  its 
dark  velvet  leaves  and  crimson  midrib,  and  the  fragrant  Frjingi- 
pane,  and  the  first  cocoa-nut,  and  the  mangrove  swamp,  and  then 
the  shells — tlie  old  friends  never  seen  till  now  but  in  cabinets  at 
liome,  earnests  that  all  was  not  a  dream  ;  the  prickly  pinna,  the 
great  strombi,  with  the  outer  shell  broken  away,  disclosing  the  rosy 
cameo  within  and  looking  on  the  rough  beach  pitifully  tender  and 
liesh-like  ;  and  the  lumps  of  coral,  all  to  be  actually  picked  up  and 
handled — and  the  first  tropic  orchid,  and  the  first  wild  pines  cling- 
ing parasitic  on  the  boughs  of  strange  trees,  or  nestling  among  the 
angular  shoots  of  the  columnar  Cereus  ;"  and  the  huge  green  cala- 
bashes, the  playthings  of  his  childhood,  alive  and  growing ;  and 
Jiow  "  up  and  down  the  sand  we  wandered  collecting  shells,  till  we 
rowed  back  to  the  ship  over  white  sand  where  grew  the  short  man- 
ati  grass,  and  where  the  bottom  was  stony,  we  could  see  huge 
j)rickly  sea  urchins,  huger  brainstone  corals,  round  and  grey,  and 
above,  sailing  over  our  heads,  flocks  of  brown  and  grey  i)elicans, 
(o  show  us  vvhere  we  were — and  met  the  fleet  of  negro  boats  laden 
with  bunches  of  plantains,  yams,  green  oranges,  sugar  cane  ; "  and 
then  the  steaming  down  the  islands,  and  the  sight  of  the  Lesser 
Antilles,  the  beauty  and  grandeur  of  which  exceeded  all  his  boy- 
ish dreams ;  and  St.  Kitts  with  its  great  hill,  which  took,  in  Colum- 
bus's imagination,  the  form  of  the  giant  St.  Christopher  bearing  on 
Ais  shoulder  the  infant  Christ — and  how  "  from  the  ship  we  beheld 
with  wonder  and  delight,  the  pride  of  the  West  Indies,  the  Cabbage 
Falms — well  named  by  botanists  the  Oreodoxa,  the  glory  of  the 
mountains — grey  pillars,  smooth  and  cylindrical  as  those  of  a  Doric 
temple,  each  carrying  a  flat  head  of  darkest  green  ; "  and  how 
Guadaloupe,  Dominica,  and  Martinique  were  passed,  and  vSt, 
Vincent  and  its  souffriere  gazed  on  with  awe  and  reverence — and 
the  beautiful  St.  Lucia  with  its  wonderful  Pitons,  and  through  the 
Grenadines  to  Grenada,  the  last  of  the  Antilles,  as  now  the  steamer 
ran  dead  south  for  seventy  miles,  and  on  St.  Thomas  Day,  at  early 
dawn, 

"  We  became  aware  of  the  blue  niountams  of  North  Trinidad 
a-head  of  us;  to  the  west  the  island  of  the  Dragon's  Mouth,  and 
westward  again,  a  cloud  among  the  clouds — the  last  spur  of  the 
Cordilleras  of  the  Spanish  Main.  There  was  South  America  at 
last ;  and  as  a  witness  that  this,  too,  was  no  dream,  the  blue  wateri 


4o8  Charles  Kingsley. 

of  the  Windward  Isles  changed  suddenly  into  foul  bottle-green 
The  waters  of  the  Orinoco,  waters  from  the  peaks  of  the  Andes  fax 
away,  were  staining  the  sea  around  us.  With  thoughts  full  of  three 
great  names,  connected  as  long  as  civilized  men  shall  remain,  with 
those  waters — Columbus,  Raleigh,  Humboldt — we  steamed  on 
.  .  .  and  then  saw  before  us  ....  to  the  eastward,  the 
northern  hills  of  Trinidad,  forest  clad  down  to  the  water  ;  to  the 
south  a  long  line  of  coast,  generally  level  with  the  water's  edge, 
green  with  mangroves  or  dotted  with  cocoa  palms.      That  was  the 

Gulf  of  Piria  and  Trinidad  beyond In  half-an-hour 

i:iore  we  were  on  shore,  amid  negroes,  coolies,  Chinese,  French, 
Spaniards,  short-legged  Guaraon  dogs  and  black  vultures." 

On  the  voyage  he  had  been  able  to  write  home  more  than  once, 
and  to  telegraph  from  St.  Thomas. 

Christmas  found  him  the  guest  of  his  kind  friend  Sir  Arthur  Gor 
don.  Governor  of  Trinidad,  at  the  Cottage,  Port  of  Spain,  the 
earthly  Paradise  which  he  had  reached  at  last. 

The  Cottage,  Port  of  Spain. 

Trinidad,  January  23,  1S70. 

"  .  .  .  You  may  conceive  the  delight  with  which  1  got  youi 
letter,  and  M 's,  and  to  think  that  the  telegram  should  have  ar- 
rived on  Christmas  Day !  No  wonder  the  intellect  of  Eversley  was 
puzzled  to  find  out  how  it  came.  You  may  tell  them  that  Mr. 
Dunlop,  Consul-General  at  Cuba,  who  went  out  with  us,  took  a 
telegram  for  us  to  Havana,  whence  there  is  telegraph  to  New 
York,  and  so  to  England,  and  as  it  went  by  government  hands,  had 
priority  of  all.     It  is  delightful  to  think  that  by  now  you  liave  got 

our  letters As  for  us,  we  are  perfectly  well.      I  have 

not  been  so  well  this  seven  years.  I  have  been  riding  this  week  six 
to  eight  hours  a  day,  through  primeval  forests,  mud,  roots,  gullies, 
and  thickets,  such  that  had  I  anticipated  them,  I  would  have 
brought  out  breeches  and  boots.  English  mud  is  but  a  trifle 
to  tropical.  But  I  have  had  no  fall,  and  never  got  wet,  and  as  foi 
what  1  have  seen,  no  tongue  can  tell.  We  have  got  many  cuiiosi- 
ties,  and  lots  of  snakes.  I  have  only  seen  one  alligator,  about  five 
to  six  feet  long,  and  marks  only  of  deer  and  capo.  But  I  have 
seen  one  of  the  mud  volcanoes  !  As  for  scenery,  for  vastness  and 
richness  mingled,  I  never  saw  its  like.  Oh  that  I  could  transport 
you  to  the  Monserrat  hills  for  one  hour.  We  can  get  no  pho- 
tographs,  so  that  I  know  not  how  to  make  you  conceive  it  all. 
The  woods  are  now  verniihon  with  Bois  Immortel ;  in  a  fortnight 
they  will  be  golden  with  Poui  (all  huge  trees).  I  have  seen  a  tree 
which  for  size    beats   all   1    ever   dreamed  of,  a   Sand-box,  forty- 


Life  in  the    Trinidad  Forests.  409 

four  feet  round  and  seventy-five  feet  (we  got  down  t.  liana  and 
measured  it)  to  the  first  fork,  which  did  not  seem  half  up  the  tree. 
Bat  with  too  Diany  of  these  giants,  you  can  get  no  good  view,  their 
heads  being  lost  in  the  green  world  above.  But  I  have  seen  single 
trees  left  in  [)arks  over  one  hundred  and  twenty  feet,  with  vast  llat 
heads,  which  are  gardens  of  orchids,  &c.,  and  tons  of  lianas  hanging 
down  from  them,  and  the  spurs  of  their  roots  like  walls  of  board  as 
high  as  a  man.  On  Tuesday  we  start  again  for  the  north  coast, 
ihen  a  short  dash  to  the  east,  and  then  home.      1  have  resisted  all 

solicitations  and  invitations,  and  poor  F.  H being  ill,  gives  me 

a  plain  reason  for  keeping  my  promise  to  you.  Besides,  I  have 
seen  enough  already  to  last  me  my  life.  I  keep  saying,  '  I  cannot 
not  have  been  in  the  tropics.'  And  as  I  ride,  I  jog  myself, 
and  say,  You  stupid  fellow,  wake  up.  Do  )'ou  see  that  ?  and  that  ? 
Do  )'OU  know  where  you  are  ?  and  my  other  self  answers.  Don't 
bother.  I  have  seen  so  much,  I  can't  take  in  any  more,  and  I 
uon't  care  about  it  all.  So  I  am  in  a  state  of  intellectual  repletion, 
indigestion,  and  shall  take  full  twelvemonths  to  assimilate  and  ar- 
range the  mass  of  new  impressions.  1  assure  you  I  am  very  carefn. 
I  had  to  lie  oft"  a  mangrove  swamp  iii  burning  sim,  very  tired, 
after  having  ridden  four  hours,  and  been  shoved  over  the  mud  in  a 
canoe  among  the  calling  crabs,  by  three  niggers,  and  I  did  not  feel 
it  the  least,  though  the  mud  stank,  and  the  wind  was  oft"  shore,  be- 
cause before  I  got  into  the  canoe,  I  took  a  good  dose  of  quinine, 
which  I  always  carry.  Moreover,  there  are  some  wonderful  angos- 
tura  bitters  (the  same  which  cured  Humboldt  of  his  fever)  which 
people  take  here  before  dinner,  or  when  wet,  tired,  or  chilly,  and 
their  efi"ect  is  magical.  I  shall  bring  some  home,  and  get  Heynes 
to  try  them  on  the  next  case  of  ague  or  low  fever.  They  are  tonic, 
not  alcoholic.  1  have  kept  a  great  number  of  notes,  and  must  make 
more.  But  this  week  1  have  travelled  too  fast,  and  have  had  no 
luggage,  save  at  my  saddle-bow.  It  is  a  glorious  life  in  the  forest, 
and  I  should  like  six  months  of  it  without  stopping,  if  it  did  not 
rain.  But  the  dry  season  is  coming  on  now,  and  it  is  growing  de 
lightfully  cool." 

Seven  weeks  passed  quickly  in  the  enjoyment,  not  only  of  the 
»■.  enery  that  he  has  described  in  "  At  Last,"  the  memories  of  which 
weic  fresh  as  ever  on  his  death-bed,  but  in  companionship  with  one 
vvhose  society  was  a  continual  charm,  who  had  attracted  him  from 
the  first  hour  he  spent  in  his  society  two  years  before,  and  with  whom, 
living  at  so  high  a  level  and  with  such  noble  aims,  he  could  com- 
mnnf  on  the  deeper  subjects,  dear  to  both.  Thanks  to  this  kind 
host,  to  whom  he  had  now  grown  strongly  attached,  and  to  whom 
he  owed  one  of  the   most  delightful  episodes  of  his  life,  he  took 


4IO  Charles  Kings  ley. 

leave  of  lo.'cly  Trinidad  refreshed  in  brain,  strengthened  in  health 
enriched  with  beautiful  memories,  and  in  the  possession  of  a  friend- 
ship which  was  true  to  the  last.  Sir  Arthur  Gordon  little  thought 
that  in  five  years  he  should  be  standing  by  Charles  Kingsley's 
grave  at  Eversley,  before  himself  setting  sail  for  a  still  greater 
work  in  the  Fiji  Islands,  than  the  government  of  Trinidad  or  the 
51  luiitius. 

He  left  St.  Tliomas  by  a  different  track  to  that  by  which  he  came, 
running  northward  between  Tortola  and  Virgin  Gorda  toward  the 
Gulf-stream — or  Drake's  Channel,  as  it  had  been  named  since  1575  j 
a  more  advantageous  course  for  a  homeward  bound  ship,  as  it 
strikes  the  Gulf  stream  soonest  and  keeps  it  longest.  The  voyage 
yas  successful,  and  notwithstanding  a  fatality  among  the  live-stock, 
and  the  death  of  an  ant-eater  and  an  alligator,  "^vho  w^ept  crocodile 
tears  before  his  departure,"  the  kinkajou  and  the  parrot,  who  were 
bound  for  Eversley  Rectory,  survived,  and  towards  the  end  of 
February 

"  The  Land's  End  was  visible,  and  as  we  neared  the  Lizard  we 
could  see  not  only  the  lighthouses  on  the  cliff,  and  every  well-known 
cave  and  rock  from  MuUion  and  Kynance  round  to  St.  Keverne, 
but  far  inland  likewise;  and  regrets  for  the  lovely  western  paradise 
were  all  swallowed  up  with  bright  thoughts  of  the  cold  northern 
home  as  '  we  ran  northwards  for  the  Needles.  With  what  joy  we 
saw  at  last  the  white  wall  of  tlie  island  glooming  dim  ahead.  With 
what  joy  we  first  discerncul  that  huge  outline  of  a  visage,  on  Fresh- 
water CHff,  so  well  known  to  sailors '     With   what  joy 

did  we  round  the  old  Needles  and  run  past  Hurst  Castle,  and  with 

what  shivering,  too At  first  an  English  winter  was  a 

change  for  the  worse.  F'ine  old  oaks  and  beeches  looked  to  us, 
fresh  from  ceibas  and  volatas,  like  leafless  brooms  stuck  into  the 
ground  by  their  handles ;  while  the  want  of  light  was  for  some  days 
painful  and  depressing.  But  we  had  done  it,  and  within  tlie  three 
months,  as  we  promised.  As  the  king  in  the  old  play  says,  '  What 
has  been,  has  been,  and  I've  had  my  hour.'  At  least  we  had  seen 
it,  and  we  could  not  unsee  it.  We  could  not  have  been  in  the 
tropics." 

And  now  returned  he  settled  down  in  the  parish  with  rene»ve<j 
vigor,  though  feeling  the  change  of  climate  almost  as  cruelly  as 
liis  son,  who  arrived  at  the  same  moment  from  South  America. 
I'he  parish  benefited  by  tl.eir  respective  travels  at  Pennj'  Readings 


The  Ca7np  ai  Alder  shot.  4  i  \ 

and  in  iheir  visits  to  the  cottagers.  He  loved  to  give  liis  peof  le 
the  results  of  his  own  and  his  children's  new  experiences  in  life  ;  for 
in  a  certain  sense  Eversley  had  advanced  a  step  in  intelligent  syni 
pathy  with  the  great  world  outside.  It  was  the  same  Eversley,  and 
yet  different  to  what  it  had  been  when  he  first  came  there  twenty- 
L'iijlit  years  before.  His  own  personal  influence,  and  the  influence 
of  new  circumstances,  had  told  upon  it.  It  was  no  longer  the  se- 
cluded spot  it  had  been  in  his  curate  days,  or  even  at  a  later 
[icriod,  when  he  loved  to  dwell  on  its  "monotony"  as  "so  pleasant 
in  itself,  morally  pleasant  and  morally  useful." 

The  monotony  was  broken  occasionally  by  very  startling  inci- 
dents— the  neighborhood  of  Aldershot  bringing  flying  columns  to 
the  Flats  and  Bramshill  Park.  Engineering  parties  camped  out 
and  wells  were  sunk  on  the  newly  enclosed  glebe  land,  as  for  an 
advancing  army  ;  artillery  wagons  rumbled  past  the  quiet  rectory, 
and  bugle  calls  were  heard  at  all  hourb  by  the  Rector  and  his  peO' 
pie.  Now  and  then,  too,  the  monotony  was  broken  by  quite 
another  excitement,  for  a  great  heath  fire  would  break  out  on  the 
Flatr^,  and  sometimes  encroached  on  the  firs  at  Bramshill  Park, 
and  committed  havoc  among  them. 

"  At  such  a  time,"  says  a  friend,  "  the  Rector  was  all  activity 
On  one  occasion  the  fire  began  during  the  time  of  divine  service, 
A  messenger  posted  down  to  the  church  in  hot  haste,  to  call  out 
the  men ;  and  Mr.  Kingsley,  leaving  the  curate  to  finish  the 
service,  rushed  to  the  scene  of  action,  taking  a  flying  leap,  in 
surplice,  hood,  and  stole,  over  the  churchyard  palings.  The  fire 
was  an  extensive  one  ;  but  he,  armed  with  a  bill-hook,  and  now  di- 
vested of  ever)thing  ecclesiastical,  was  everywhere,  organizing 
bands  of  beaters,  and,  begirt  with  smoke  and  flame,  resisting  the 
advance  of  the  fire  at  every  advantageous  point.  For  many  nights 
subsequently  watchers  were  placed  in  the  woods ;  and  at  a  late 
hour  (between  11  p.m.  and  2  a.m.)  Mr.  Kingsley  would  sally  forth 
and  go  the  rounds,  carefully  inspecting  the  country  as  he  went, 
cheering  the  watchers  with  kind  hearty  words  of  encouragement — 
himself  intensely  interested  in  the  general  picturesqueness  of  the 
event,  and  excited  by  the  feeling  that  the  alarm  might  be  given  at 
any  moment,  and  the  firs  which  he  loved  so  dearly  be  wrapped  in 
Same." 

On  the  ist  of  May  he  took  possession  of  "  the  Residence  "  in 
Abbey  Square,  Chester,  for  three  months.  His  Dean,  to  whom  he 
gave  glad  allegiance  and  under  whom  he  worked  for  three  yearn 


412  Charles  Kingsley. 

teceived  him  vvi/,h  cordial  kindness  ;  and  it  was  c.  happy  circuin 
stance  and  an  important  one  to  him  that  the  first  cathedral  with 
which  he  was  connected,  was  one  where  the  reverent  worship  and 
admirable  arrangements  made  every  service  in  which  he  joined 
'".ongenial  and  elevating.  Choral  services  had  hitherto  had  little 
attraction  for  him  :  the  slovenliness  which  in  by-gone  years  charac- 
ter'.sod  them  in  some  places,  having  shocked  him  fi-om  the  aesthetic 
and  still  more  from  the  religious  point  of  view.  Had  this  been  the 
case  at  Chester  it  would  have  been  a  serious  drawback  to  the  hap- 
piness of  his  life  while  there.  But  all  was  in  harmony  with  the 
ideal  of  Christian  worship.  And  the  dignity  of  the  services,  the 
reverence  of  all  who  conducted  them,  from  its  visitor,  the  Bishop 
much  beloved,  who  was  always  present  (except  when  diocesan 
business  called  him  away),  down  to  the  little  chorister  boys,  im- 
pressed him  deeply.  It  filled  the  new  Canon's  heart  with  thank- 
fulness that  the  lot  had  fallen  to  him  in  a  cathedral,  where  dean, 
precentor,  organist,  choir  master  and  lay  clerks  all  worked  ear- 
nestly to  one  end ;  and  he  could  say  with  truth,  as  day  by  day  he 
entered  the  venerable  cloisters,  "  How  amiable  are  Thy  dwellings, 
O  Lord,  Thou  God  of  hosts.  My  soul  hath  a  desire  and  longing 
to  enter  into  the  courts  of  the  Lord.  One  day  in  Thy  courts  is 
better  than  a  thousand.  Blessed  are  they  that  dwell  in  Thy  house." 
The  early  morning  daily  services  were  his  great  refreshment,  and 
seemed  to  hallow  the  day  to  him,  and  many  peaceful  moments  did 
he  spend  in  the  old  chapter  house,  in  reading  and  prayer,  before 
the  clergy  and  choir  assembled  for  worship,  at  eight  o'clock  a.m. 

The  Sunday  services,  including  the  vast  nave  congregation  in 
the  evening,  were  exciting  and  exhausting ;  but  through  all,  he  ex- 
perienced an  abiding  satisfaction  of  soul,  a  sense  of  the  fitness  of 
things,  which  was  quite  unexpected  to  himself  and  to  those  who 
had  known  his  previous  habit  of  life  and  feeling.  Without  pro- 
feising  to  understand  music,  he  had  always  felt  it,  as  a  man  of  his 
genius  and  fine  organization  necessarily  must :  but  at  Chester  it 
revealed  itself  to  him  in  the  cathedral  worship,  and  in  daily  inter- 
course with  his  friend  the  Precentor,  he  soon  learned  to  look  and 
long  for  particuar  anthems  and  services  with  eagerness  and  appre 
ciation. 

A  few  days  after  arriving  at  Chester  he  took  the  chair  for  the 
Dean  at  a   meeting  of  the  Archiijological  Society,  and  on  being 


Settled  at  Chester.  .  413 

asked   whether  he  belonged  to  the  old  Kingslcy  family  once  in 
Chesliire,  said  : 

"  His  own  feeling  in  coming  to  Chester  was  that  he  was  coming 
home,  for  althcigh  he  was  landless,  his  ancestors  had  not  been. 
He  confessed  to  a  feeling  of  pride  in  his  connection  with  Che- 
shire, and  to  the  mention  of  his  name  in  the  old  Tarporley  hunt- 
ing song  : 

'  In  right  of  his  bugle  and  greyhounds  to  sieze 
Waif,  pannage,  agistment,  and  wind-fallen  trees; 
His  knaves  through  our  forest  Ralph  Kingsley  dispersed. 
Bow-bearer-in-chief  to  Earl  Randall  the  First. 

*  This  Horn  the  Grand  Forester  wore  at  his  side 
Whene'er  his  liege  lord  chose  a-hunting  to  ride — 
By  Sir  Ralpli  and  his  heirs  for  a  century  blown, 
It  passed  from  his  lips  to  the  mouth  of  a  Done.' 

He  was  glad  to  come  to  a  county  where  many  of  his  kin  had 
lived,  and  where  he  had  many  friends,  and  he  had  no  higher  ambi- 
tion than  to  live  and  v'ie  Canon  of  Chester.  He  was  by  no  means 
an  ambitious  man,  as  the  world  called  a  man  ambitious.  All  he 
wanted  was  time  to  do  his  work  and  write  his  books ;  and  if  in 
anything  set  on  foot  in  this  ancient  city — any  movement  connected 
with  literary  and  scientific  societies  or  mechanics'  institutes — he 
might  be  able  to  help  in  his  humble  way,  he  was  at  the  service  of 
the  good  citizens  of  Chester.  He  did  not  wish  to  thrust  himself 
forward,  to  originate  anything  grand,  or  to  be  m  anybody's  way  ; 
but  if  they  could  tind  him  reasonable  work,  as  he  was  a  rather 
overworked  man,  he  would  be  hapi)y  to  do  it,  without  any  regard 
to  creed,  politics,  or  rank  in  any  way  whatsoever.  He  thanked  the 
gentlemen  who  had  said  so  much  in  his  favor,  and  hoped  he  should 
not  forfeit  the  good  opinion  they  had  somewhat  hastily  formed  of 
him." 

Besides  the  daily  services,  which  were  an  occupation  in  them- 
j  ;lves,  and  the  preparation  of  his  sermons,  he  was  anxious  to  get 
some  regular  week-day  work  that  would  bring  the  cathedral  and 
the  town  in  close  contact.  As  usual  his  heart  turned  to  the  young 
men,  whose   time  on  long  spring  and  summer  evenings  might  be 


*  The  bugle  horn,  alluded  to  in  the  old  song,  and  which  is  in  his  coat  of  arms, 
was  the  one  which  his  ancestors,  as  Foresters  to  Earl  Randall,  had  the  right  to 
wear.  Tlie  giandson  of  this  Ranulph,  Ralph  de  Kingsley,  married  Mabilla  de 
Moston  in  1233,  and  the  same  coat  of  arms,  "vert  a  cross  engi ailed  ermine  00 
ui  escocheon  of  pretence  Argent,  a  bugle  strung  sable,"  have  been  carried  bv 
the  family  tlirough  many  reverses  to  the  present  day. 


414  Charles  Kiiigstey. 

turned  to  account,  and  he  offered  to  start  a  little  class  on  physici 
science,  expecting  to  have  perhaps  at  most  sixteen  to  twenty  young 
shopmen  and  clerks.  Botany  was  the  chosen  subject,  and  in  a 
small  room  belonging  to  the  city  library,  on  the  walls,  he  began — 
the  black  board  and  a  bit  of  white  chalk  being  as  usual  of  impor- 
tant  help  to  the  lectures,  which  he  illustrated  throughout.  I'he 
class  soon  increased  so  much  in  numbers  that  he  had  to  migrate 
to  a  larger  room — a  walk  and  a  field  lecture  was  proposed  once  a 
week — and  the  party  was  watched  from  the  walls  with  surprise,  and 
once  the  gathering  was  so  large  that  a  man  who  met  them  sup- 
posed them  to  be  a  congregation  going  off  to  the  opening  of  a 
Dissenting  chapel  in  the  country.  This  was  the  beginning  of  the 
Chester  Natural  History  Society,  which  now  numbers  between  five 
and  six  hundred  members,  with  president,  secretary,  monthly  meet- 
ing report,  regular  summer  excursions,  and  winter  courses. 

"  I  am  very  happy  here,"  he  writes  to  Mr.  Froude.  "  I  have  daily 
service,  which  is  very  steadying  and  elevating.  Plenty  of  work  in 
the  place.  I  have  started  a  botanical  class  for  middle-class  young 
men,  which  seems  to  go  well ;  an  opportunity  of  preaching  to 
shrewd,  able  Northern  men,  who  can  understand  and  respond  ; 
and  time  to  work  at  physical  science — the  only  thing  I  care  for 
much  now — for  it  is  the  way  of  God  who  made  all ;  while, — 

•  All  the  windy  ways  of  men 
Are  but  dust  whicli  rises  up 
And  is  lightly  laid  again.'  " 

He  occasionally  preached  in  the  diocese  during  his  first  resi- 
dence,  the  Dean  being  anxious  that  the  work  of  the  chapter  should 
extend  beyond  the  cathedral  city,  and  on  one  occasion  he  preached 
a  sermon  for  the  Kirkdale  Ragged  School,  in  June,  which  made  a 
deep  impression,  and  was  much  quoted  from  by  Liverpool  news- 
papers, under  the  heading  of  "  Canor.  Kingsley  on  Human  Soot." 
'  I  iemeii,ber,'  says  a  clergyman  who  heard  him  on  this  occasion, 
'  Uis*;  marvellous  sermon  on  '  Human  Soot.'  It  made  me  more 
than  ever  know  the  magnificent  mental  calibie  of  the  man.  Canon 
Kingsley  was  one  of  a  few,  and  they  giants.     .     .     .  " 

We  no\v  retain  to  the  letters  for  the  year.  Among  them  ai'« 
two  on  "Woman's  Rights;"  the  date  of  the  last  is  uncertain,  buT 
both  are  significant  of  his  latest  views  on  this  question. 


lVo?ne/is  SuJJrage.  415 


TO    MRS.  PETER   TAYLOR. 

Chester,  M&y  27,  1870. 

••I  have  the  honor  of  acknowledging  your  letter  respecting  ths 
Women's  Suffrarge  Question.  If  I,  as  one  who  has  the  movement 
at  heart  more  intensely  than  I  choose  to  tell  any  one,  and  also  a; 
one  who  is  not  unacquainted  with  the  general  public  opinion  of 
England,  might  dare  to  give  advice,  it  would  be,  not  in  the  direc- 
tion of  increased  activity,  but  in  that  of  increased  passivity.  Fool- 
ish  i)ersons  have  'set  up  the  British  Lion's  back,'  with  just  fears 
and  suspicions.  Right-minded,  but  inexperienced  persons,  have  set 
up  his  back  with  unjust  (though  pardonable)  fears  and  suspicions. 
I  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  that  a  great  deal  which  has  been  said  and 
done  by  women,  and  those  who  wish  to  support  women's  rights, 
during  the  last  six  months,  has  thrown  back  our  cause.  I  will  not, 
nay,  I  utterly  decline  to,  enter  into  details.  But  that  what  I  say  \i 
true,  I  know,  and  know  too  well.  We  shall  not  win  by  petitions. 
The  House  of  Commons  cares  nothing  for  them.  It  knows  too 
well  how  they  can  be  got  up,  and  takes  for  granted  that  we  shall 
get  up  ours  in  the  same  way. 

"  By  pamphleteering  we  shall  not  win.  Pamphlets  now  are  too 
common.  They  melt  on  the  debauched  and  distracted  sensorium 
of  the  public,  like  snow  on  water.  By  quiet,  modest,  silent,  private 
intiuence,  we  shall  win.  '  Neither  strive  nor  cry,  nor  let  your  voice 
be  heard  in  the  streets,'  was  good  advice  of  old,  and  is  still.  1 
have  seen  many  a  movement  succeed  by  it.  I  have  seen  many  a 
movement  tried  by  the  other  method,  of  striving,  and  crying,  and 
making  a  noise  in  the  street.  But  I  have  never  seen  one  succeed 
thereby,  and  never  shall.  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  that  unless 
this  movement  is  kept  down  to  that  tone  of  grace,  and  modesty, 
and  dignity,  which  it  would  always  be  by  you,  madam,  were  you 
the  only  leader,  and  which  would  make  it  acceptable  to  the  mass 
of  cultivated  and  experienced,  and  therefore  justly  powerful, 
Englishmen  and  English  women,  it  will  fail  only  by  the  fault  of  its. 
supporters. 

'*  I  warn  you  of  a  most  serious  danger.  I  have  found  that  when 
t.he(iuestion  has  been  put  in  its  true,  practical,  rational  light,  tv)  im  it 
and  women  who  had  the  greatest  horror  of  it  from  prejudice,  their 
consciences  and  reasons  gave  way  at  once,  and  they  were  ready  to 
submit  and  agree.  But  I  have  found,  alas  !  that  within  a  week, 
some  one  or  other  had  said  or  done  something  premature,  or  even 
objectionable,  which  threw  back  the  process  of  conversion.  This 
is  the  true  cause  of  our  seemingly  unexpected  failure.  And  I  en- 
treat you,  as  one  who  never  by  word  or  deed,  as  far  as  I  have 
known,  have  contributed  to  that  failure,  and  for  whom  I  have  so 
pro.f"ound  a  respect,  to  control,  instead  of  exciting,  just  now,  those 
ovei  whom  you  have,  and  o  ight  to  have,  influence." 


4i6  Charles  Kings  ley. 

About  this  tii.ie  Mr.  John  Stuart  Mill,  hearing  that  Mr.  Kir.gslej 
had  withdrawn  more  or  less  from  the  movement,  wr  jte  to  ask  hiin 
his  reasons.  The  mode  of  procedure  of  some  of  its  advocates  had 
shocked  him  so,  that  he  refused  to  attend  any  meetings,  and  the 
only  branch  of  the  subject  to  which  he  willingly  gave  his  influence 
latterly  was  the  Medical  education  of  women,  which  he  had  held 
foi  yeais  (long  before  the  question  of  "Women's  Suffrage"  was 
mooted)  was  one  of  the  deepest  importance,  and  which  to  the  last 
?iad  his  entire  sympathy. 

TO    JOHN    STUART    MILL,    ESQ. 

Chester. 

"  My  dear  Mr.  Mill, 

"  As  you  have  done  me  the  unexpected  honor  of  asking  my 
opinion  on  an  important  matter,  I  can  only  answer  you  with  that 
frankness  which  is  inspired  by  confidence  and  respect,  i.  I  do  not 
think  that  ladies  speaking  can  have  had,  or  can  have,  any  adverse 
influence.     You  used,  J  doubt  not,  your  usual  wisdom  in  opposing 

Miss 's  speaking  at  a  public  meeting,  and,  as  yet,  but  only  as 

yet,  I  should  think  such  a  move  premature.  That  I  think  women 
ought  to  speak  in  public,  in  any  ideal,  or  even  truly  civilized  society 
and  polity,  I  hope  I  need  not  tell  you.  My  fear  is,  not  so  much  that 
women  should  speak,  as  loho  the  women  are  who  speak.     .     . 

"  There  exist,  in  all  ranks  of  the  English,  and  in  none  more  than 
m  the  highest  rank,  women  brave,  prudent,  pure,  wise,  tried  by 
experience  and  sorrow,  highly  cultivated  and  thoughtful  too,  whose 
influence  is  immense,  and  is  always  exercised  for  good,  as  far  as  they 
see  their  way.  And  unless  we  can  get  these,  of  all  ranks,  and  in 
each  rank,  down  to  the  very  lowest,  to  be  '  the  leaders  of  fashion,' 
for  good,  instead  of  evil,  we  shall  not  succeed.  I  am  pained,  in  a 
very  large  acquaintance  of  all  ranks,  to  find  the  better  rather  than 
the  worse  women  against  us,  to  find  that  foolish  women,  of  no  sound 
or  coherent  o|)inions,  and  of  often  questionable  morals  .... 
are  inclined  to  patronise  us  in  the  most  noisy  and  demonstrative 
way.  I  am  aware  of  the  physical  and  psychical  significance  of  thif 
fact.  I  know,  and  have  long  foreseen,  that  what  our  new  idea  has. 
to  beware  of,  lest  it  should  be  swamped  thereby,  is  hysteria,  male 
and  female.  Christianity  was  swamped  by  it  from  at  least  the  third 
to  the  sixteenth  century,  and  if  we  wish  to  save  ourselves  from  the 
same  teirible  abyss,  and  to — I  quote  my  dear  friend  Huxley's  words, 
with  full  agreement,  though  giving  them  a  broader  sense  than  he  wcuid 
as  yet — '  to  reconstruct  society  according  to  science,'  we  must  steer 
clear  of  the  hysteric  element,  which  I  define  as  tlie  fancy  and  emo- 
tions unduly  excited  by  suppressed  sexual  excitemer  t.  It  is  all  the 
more  necessary  to  do  this,  if  we  intend  to  attack  '  s  Jcial  evils,'  i.e. 


Emancipated   Women,  417 

sexual  questions,  by  the  help  of  woman  raised  to  her  proper  place. 
That  you  mean  to  do  sj  1  take  for  granted.  That  I  do,  I  hope 
you  take  for  granted.  If  not,  I  should  be  glad  some  day  to  have 
the  honor  of  talking  over  with  you  this  whole  matter,  on  which  ] 
have  long  thought,  and  on  which  I  have  arrived  at  conclusions 
which  I  keep  to  myself  as  yet,  and  only  utter  as  Greek  <^ijivavro. 
<n.'veTotcrt,  the  principle  of  which  is,  that  there  will  never  be  a  good 
world  for  woman,  till  the  last  monk,  and  therewith  the  last  remnant 
of  the  monastic  idea  of,  and  legislation  for,  woman,  i.e.,  the  canon 
law,  is  civilized  off  the  earth. 

"Meanwhile,  all  the  most  pure  and  high-minded  women  in  Eiig- 
land,  and  in  Europe,  have  been  brought  uj)  under  the  shadow  of  the 
canon  law,  have  accepted  it,  with  their  usual  divine  self-sacrifice,  as 
their  destiny  by  law  of  God  and  nature  ;  and  consider  their  own 
womanhood  outraged,  when  it,  their  tyrant,  is  meddled  with.  It  is  to 
them,  therefore,  if  we  wish  (as  I  do)  for  a  social  revolution,  that  we 
must  address  ourselves  mildly,  privately,  modestly,  rationally.  Public 
meetings  drive  them  away,  for  their  experiences,  difficulties,  wrongs, 
are  too  sacred  to  be  detailed  even  before  women  of  whom  they 
are  not  sure,  much  more  before  men,  most  of  all  before  a  press,  which 
will  report,  and  next  morning  cynically  comment  on,  the  secrets  of 
their  hearts.  A  free  press — with  all  its  innumerable  advantages — is 
the  great  barrier  (I  say  it  to  you  deliberately)  to  the  moving  in  this 
matter  of  that  great  mass  of  matrons  for  whom,  in  the  long  run,  the 
movement  is  set  on  foot ;  and  by  whom  alone  it  can  be  carried  out. 
At  least,  so  it  seems  to  me,  who  fight,  not  for  the  maiden  so  much 
as  for  the  matron,  because,  if  the  mother  be  benefited,  the  child  is 
benefited  in  her.      And  therefore  I  deprecate  the  interference  in 

this  movement  of  unmarried  women But  I  see  with 

pain   this  movement   backed  up   by ,  and ,  and  by  other 

men  and  women  who,  unknown  themselves  to  the  English  nation, 
and  knowing  nothing  of  it,  and  its  actual  opinions  and  habits  for 
good  or  evil,  in  a  word,  sectarians  {whether  they  know  it  or  not), 
seem  ready  to  scramble  back  into  a  society  which  they  have  in  some 
cases  forfeited,  by  mixing  themselves  up  with  questions  which  it  is 
not  for  such  as  they  to  speak  of,  either  in  the  study  or  the  forum. 
J  objec,t,  also,  to  the  question  of  woman's  right  to  vote  or  to  labor 
and  above  all,  to  woman's  right  to  practise  as  physicians  and  sur- 
geons, being  mixed  up  with  social,  i.e..,  sexual  questions.  Of 
woman's  right  to  be  a  medical  practitioner,  I  hold  (as  perhaps  you 
may  do  me  the  honor  to  be  aware)  that  it  is  perhaps  the  most  im- 
portant social  question  hanging  over  us.  I  believe  that  if  once 
women  can  be  allowed  to  practise  as  freely  as  men,  tte  whole 
question  of  the  relation  of  the  sexes,  according  to  natural  la  Jvs,  and, 
therefore,  according  to  what  I  believe  to  be  the  will  and  mind  of 
God,  the  author  of  nature  [will  be  made  clear].  .  .  .  But  for 
that  ver}'  reason,  I  am  the  more  anxious  that  women  should  no^ 
27 


41 8  Charles  Kingsley. 

meddle  with  these  sesual  questicns,  first,  before  they  have  acquired 
a  sound,  and  also  a  general,  scientific  physiological  training,  which 
shall  free  thera  from  sentiment,  and  confine  them  to  physical  laws 
and  fact,  on  these  matters.  Second,  before  they  have  so  accustomed 
the  public  to  their  ministrations,  as  to  show  them  that  they  are  the 
equals  of  men  in  scientific  knowledge  and  practical  ability  (as  they 
are) ;  and  more,  that  they  know,  as  women,  a  hundred  woman's 
secrets,  wliich  no  one  but  a  woman  can  know  truly,  and  which  it  is 
a  disgrace  ta  modern  civilization  that  a  man  should  have  the  right 
of  trymg  to  interpret.  Therefore  I  deprecate,  most  earnestly,  all 
the  meddling,  however  pure-minded,  humane,  &c.,  which  women 
have  brought  to  bear  on  certain  questions  during  the  last  six  months. 
I  do  not  say  that  they  are  wrong.  Heaven  forbid  !  But  1  do  say, 
that  by  so  doing  they  are  retarding,  it  may  be  for  generations,  the 
cause  which  they  are  trying  to  serve.  And  I  do  say  (for  I  have 
seen  it),  that  they  are  thereby  mixing  themselves  up  with  the  fanat- 
ical of  both  sexes  ;  with  the  vain  and  ambitious,  and  worst  of  all, 
with  the  prurient.  Prurience,  sir,  by  which  I  mean  lust,  which, 
unable  to  satisfy  itself  in  act,  satisfies  itself  by  contemplation,  usually 
of  a  negative  and  seemingly  virtuous  and  Pharisaic  character,  vilify- 
ing, like  St.  Jerome  in  his  cell  at  Bethlehem,  that  which  he  dare  not 
do,  and  which  is,  after  all,  only  another  form  of  hysteria — that  is 
the  evil  which  we  have  to  guard  against,  and  we  shall  not  do  so, 
unless  we  keep  about  this  whole  movement  a  tone  of  modesty, 
delicacy,  lofty  purity,  which  (whatever  it  knows,  and  perhaps  it 
knows  all)  will  not,  and  dare  not,  talk  aloud  about  it.  That  tone 
will  not  be  kept,  if  we  allow  the  matrons,  and  after  them  the 
maidens  (by  whom  I  mean  women  still  under  the  intluence  of  their 
fathers  and  mothers),  or  women  having  by  their  own  j^roperty  a 
recognised  social  position,  to  be  turned  out  of  sight  in  this  move- 
ment by  '  emancipated'  women. 

"  I  know  that  the  line  is  very  difficult  to  draw.  I  see  how  -ve 
must  be  tempted  to  include,  nay,  to  welcome  as  our  best  advocates, 
women  who  are  smarting  under  social  wrongs,  who  can  si^eak  on 
behalf  of  freedom  with  an  earnestness  like  that  of  the  escaped  slave. 
But  I  feel  that  we  must  resist  that  temptation  ;  that  our  strength 
lies  not  in  the  abnormal,  but  in  the  normal  ty])e  of  womanhood. 
Arid  1  must  say,  that  any  sound  reformation  of  the  relations  between 
woman  and  man,  must  proceed  from  women  who  have  fulfiUet' 
well  tiieir  relations  as  they  now  exist,  imperfect  and  unjust  as  the^ 
arc.  That  only  those  who  have  worked  well  in  liarness,  will '  e  able 
to  work  well  out  of  harness  ;  and  that  only  those  that  have  been 
(as  tens  of  thousands  of  women  are  every  day)  rulers  over  a  few 
things  will  be  fit  to  be  rulers  over  many  things ;  and  I  hold  this— 
in  justice  to  myself  I  must  say  it — not  merely  on  grounds  theo- 
logical'  so-called,  but  o\\  grounds  without  which  the  'theological 
weigh  with  me  very  little— grounds  material  and  physiological — OT! 


lVo)na)L  the    Teacher  and,  Inspirer.         415 

that   voluKiatein  Dei  in  rebus  revelatam,  to  which  I  try,  humbly 
though  confusedly,  to  submit  all  my  conclusions. 

'•  Meanwhile,  I  shall  do  that  which  I  have  been  doing  for  year; 
past  Tiy  to  teach  a  noble  freedom,  to  those  whom  I  see  most 
willing,  faithful,  conscientious  in  their  slavery,  through  the  path  y{ 
self-sacrifice  ;  and  to  intiuence  their  masters  likewise,  to  see  in  that 
self-sacrifice  something  far  more  divine  than  their  own  self  assertion. 
'J')  show  them  that  wherever  mari  and  wife  are  really  happy 
tiitethcr,  it  is  by  ignoring  and  despising,  not  by  asserting  the  subordi 
nation  (;f  woman  to  man,  which  they  hold  in  theory.  To  set  fortl. 
in  every  book  I  write  (as  I  have  done  for  twenty-five  years)  womaii 
as  the  teacher,  the  natural  and  therefore  divine,  guide,  purifier, 
inspirer  of  the  man.  And  so,  perhaps,  I  may  be  as  useful  to  the 
cause  of  chivalry,  dear  equally  to  you  and  me,  as  if  I  attended 
many  meetings,  and  spoke,  or  caused  to  be  spoken,  many 
speeches." 

TO    PROFESSOR    MAX    MiJLLER. 

EVERSLEY,  August  8,   1S70 

"  Accept  my  loving  congratulations  to  you  and  your  peoi)le. 
The  day  which  dear  Bunsen  used  to  pray,  with  tears  in  his  eyes, 
might  not  come  till  the  German  people  were  ready,  has  come,  and 
the  German  people  are  ready. 

"Verily  God  is  just;  and  rules,  too,  whatever  the  press  may 
think  to  the  contrary. 

"  My  only  fear  is,  lest  the  Germans  should  think  of  Paris,  which 
cannot  concern  them,  and  turn  their  eyes  away  from  that  which 
does  concern  them,  the  re-taking  Elsass  (which  is  their  own),  and 
leaving  the  Frenchman  no  foot  of  the  Rhine-bank.  To  make  the 
Rhine  a  word  not  to  be  mentioned  by  the  French  henceforth, 
ought  to  be  the  one  object  of  wise  Germans,  and  that  alone.      In 

any  case,  with  love  to  dear  G ,  I  am  yours,  full  of  delight  and 

hope  for  Germany." 

To  another  friend  he  writes  : — 

"As  for  the  war,  I  dare  not  give  opinion  on  it.  It  is  the  riost 
important  event  since  the  Revolution  of  1793,  and  we  are  <^oo  neat 
it  yet  to  judge  of  it  fairly.  My  belief  is,  that  it  will  work  good  foi 
generations  to  come.     But  at  what  an  awful  price  I  " 

TO    ALFRED    WALLi^^'E,    ESQ.,    F.L.S. 

EvERSLEV,   October  22,   1870. 

"I  have  read  your  '  Essay  on  Natural  Selection'  with  eqrfl.1  de* 
light  and  profit. 


420  Charles  Kings  ley. 

"  I  wish  you  would  re-consider  ))ages  276-285.  The  facts,  t\ 
course,  are  true,  as  all  yours  are  sure  to  be  ;  but  I  have  never  beer, 
able  to  get  rid  of  the  belief,  that  every  gi  lin  of  sand  washed  down 
by  a  river — by  the  merest  natural  laws — if  designedly  put  in  the 
exact  place  where  it  will  be  needed  some  time  or  other  ;  or  that 
the  ugliest  beast  (though  I  confess  the  puzzle  here  is  stranger),  and 
the  most  devilish,  has  been  created  because  it  is  beautiful  and  use- 
ful to  some  being  or  other.  In  fact,  1  believe  not  only  in  '  special 
providences,'  but  in  the  whole  universe  as  one  infinite  complexity 
of  special  providences.  I  only  ask  you  to  extend  to  all  nature  the 
truth  yoti  have  so  gallantly  asserted  for  man — '  That  the  laws 
of  organic  develojiment  have  been  occasionally  used  for  a  special 
end,  just  as  man  uses  them  for  his  special  ends.'      Page  370. 

"Omit  'occasionally,'  and  say  'always,'  and  you  will  complete 
your  book  and  its  use.  In  any  case,  it  will  be  a  contribution 
equally  to  science  and  to  natural  theology."  * 

TO    MATTHEW    ARNOLD. 

EvERSLEY,  November  i,   1870. 

"  I  have  at  last  had  time  to  read  carefully  your  '  Culture  and 
Anarchy,'  and  here  is  my  verdict  if  you  care  for  it.  That  it  is  an 
exceeding  wise  and  true  book  ;  and  likely,  as  such,  to  be  little 
listened  to  this  autumn,  f  but  to  sink  into  the  ground  and  die,  and 
bear  fruit  next  spring,  when  the  spring  comes.  For  me,  born  a 
DarbariaKi,  and  bred  a  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews,  it  has  been  of  solid 
comfort  and  teaching.  1  have  had  for  years  past  an  inkling  that 
in  Hellenism  was  our  hope.  I  have  been  ashamed  of  myself,  as  a 
clergyman,  when  I  caught  myself  saying  to  myself  that  1  had  rather 
have  been  an  old  Greek  than  an  Englishman.  Your  book  has 
justified  me  to  myself  while  it  showed  me  where  1  was  ungrateful 
to  God  and  wrong.  I  will  not  trouble  you  with  more  talk,  for  it 
will  be  far  worse  than  that  which  you  can  say  to  yourself  any  day; 
but  I  must  thank  you  for  the  book,  as  a  moral  tonic,  as  well  as  an 
intellectual  purge.  Ah,  that  I  could  see  you,  and  talk  with  you. 
But  here  I  am,  trying  to  do  my  quiet  work  ;  and  given  up,  now, 
utterly,  to  physical  science — which  is  my  business  in  the  Hellenic 
direction." 

*  "Contributions  to  the  Theory  of  Natural  Selection  :  A  Series  of  Essays,' 
by  Alfred  Russell  Wallace.  Tlie  chapter  referred  'o  at  p'ges  276-85  is  hcadea, 
"Adaptation  brou<;l\t  about  by  (lencral  Laws."  The  passage  '«  too  Icui;  tt 
quo't. 

\  French  and  Prussian  War-time 


CHAPTER    XXVI I 

I87I. 

Aged   52, 

.ccture  on  "  The  Thcolog^y  of  tlie  Future  "  at  Sion  College— Expeditions  cf  (in 
Clirster  Natural  Science  Society — Lectures  on  Towii  lieology — Race  Week 
at  Chestsr — Letters  on  Betting— Camp  at  Bramshill — Tht  Prince  of  Wales  in 
Eversley — Prince  of  Wales's  Illness — Lecture  to  Royal  Artillery  Officers  a! 
Woolwich. 

In  J^^nuary  he  gare  a  lecture  by  request  at  Sion  College.  The 
subject  he  chose  \vas  "  The  Theology  of  the  Future,"*  in  which  he 
urged  on  the  clergy  the  necessity  of  facing  the  great  scientific  facts 
of  the  day,  and  asserted  his  own  belief  in  final  causes. 

"  I  wish  to  speak,"  he  says,  "  not  on  natural  religion,  but  on 
natural  theology.  By  the  first  I  understand  what  can  be  learnt 
from  the  physical  universe  of  man's  duty  to  God  and  his  neighbor ; 
by  the  latter  I  understand  what  can  be  learned  concerning  God 
Himself.  Of  natural  religion  I  shall  say  nothing.  I  do  not  even 
affirm  that  a  natural  religion  is  possible  ;  but  I  do  very  earnestly 
believe  that  a  natural  theology  is  possible  ;  and  I  earnestly  believe 
also  that  it  is  most  important  that  natural  theology  should,  in  every 
age,  keep  pace  with  doctrinal  or  ecclesiastical  theology " 

He  goes  on  to  speak  of  Bishop  Butler,  Berkele)'^,  and  Paley,  the 
ihree  greatest  of  our  natural  theologians,  and  of  the  strong  fact, 
diaf.  the  clergy  of  the  Church  of  England,  since  the  foundation  of 
the  Royal  Society  in  the  17th  century,  have  done  more  for  sound 
ph)  iical  science  than  the  clergy  of  any  other  denomination  ;  and 
expresses  his  belief  that  if  our  orthodox  thinkers  for  the  last  hun- 
dred years  had  followed  steadily  in  their  steps,  we  should  not  now 
be  deploring  the  wide  and,  as  some   think,  widening  gulf  l)etween 

*  This  lecture,  or  rather  part  of  it,  is  incorporated  in'o  the  piefacf  3»f  hi? 
"  Westminster  Sermons,"  published  in  1874. 


42  2  Charles  Kings  Ley. 

science  and  Christianity.  He  considers  Goethe's  claims  to  have 
advanced  natural  theology  as  very  much  over-rated,  but  strongly 
recommends  to  the  younger  clergy  "  Herder's  Outlines  of  the 
I'hilosoj^hy  of  the  History  of  Man"  as  a  book,  in  spite  of  certain 
defects,  full  of  sound  and  precious  wisdom. 

He  speaks  of  certain  popular  hymns  of  the  present  day  as  proofs 
of  an  unhealthy  view  of  the  natural  world,  with  a  savor  hanging 
about  th.ein  of  the  old  monastic  theory  of  the  earth  being  the 
devil's  ])lanet  instead  of  God's,  and  gives  characteristic  instances, 
cojstrasting  their  key-note  with  that  of  the  104th,  147th,  and  148th 
Psalms,  and  the  noble  Benedicite  Omnia  Opera  of  our  Prayer-book. 
Again,  he  contrasts  the  Scriptural  doctrine  about  the  earth  being 
cursed  with  the  popular  fancies  on  the  same  point.  He  speaks  ol 
the  T39th  Psalm  as  a  "marvellous  essay  on  natural  theology,"  and 
of  its  pointing  to  the  important  study  of  embryology,  which  is  now 
occupying  the  attention  of  Owen,  Huxley,  and  Darwin.  Then  he 
goes  on  to  "  Race,"  and  "  the  painful  and  tremendous  facts  "  which 
it  involves,  which  must  all  be  faced  ;  believing  himself  that  here,  as 
elsewhere,  Science  and  Scripture  will  be  ultimately  found  to  coin- 
cide. He  presses  the  study  of  Darwin's  Fertilization  of  Orchids 
(whether  his  main  theory  be  true  or  not)  as  a  most  valuable  addi- 
tion to  natural  theology.  Then,  after  an  eloquent  protest  against 
the  "  child-dream  of  a  dead  universe  governed  by  an  absent  God," 
wliich  Carlyle  and  even  Goethe  have  "  treated  with  noble  scorn," 
he  speaks  of  that  "  nameless,  invisible,  imponderable,"  yet  seem- 
ing omnipresent,  thing  which  scientific  men  are  finding  below  all 
phenomena,  which  the  scalpel  and  the  microscope  can  show — the 
life  which  shapes  and  makes — that  "  unknown  and  truly  miraculous 
element  in  nature,  the  mystery  of  which  for  ever  engrossing,  as  it 
riots,  the  noblest  minded  of  our  students  of  science,  is  yet  for  evei 
escaping  them  while  they  cannot  escape  it."  He  calls  on  the 
clergy  to  have  courage  to  tell  them — what  will  sanctify,  while  it 
nti'd  never  hamper,  their  investigations — that  this  perpetual  and 
omnipresent  miracle  is  no  other  than  the  Breath  of  God  :  The 
Spirit  Vv'ho  is  The  Lord,  and  The  Giver  of  Life.  "  Let  us  only 
wait,''  he  says — "  let  us  observe — let  us  have  patience  and  faith. 
Nominalis'ii,  and  that  '  sensationalism '  which  has  sprung  fronj 
Nominalism,  are  running  fast  to  seed  ;  Comtism  seems  to  me  its 
Rupremc  eftort,  <ifter  "hich  the  whirligig  of  Time  may  brirg  round 


The  Chester  Scieulific  Society.  423 

:t2  revenges  ;  and  Realism,  and  we  who  hold  the  ReaUst  creeds, 
may  have  our  turn." 

"  I  sometimes  dream,"  he  adds,  "  of  a  day  when  it  will  be  con- 
siiered  necessary  that  every  candidate  for  ordination  should  be 
required  to  have  passed  creditably  in  at  least  one  branch  of  physi- 
cal science,  if  it  be  only  to  teach  him  the  method  of  sound  scien- 
tific thought.  And  if  it  be  said  that  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  by 
doing  away  with  the  theory  of  creation,  does  away  with  that  of  final 
causes — let  us  answer  boldly,  Not  in  the  least.  We  might  accept 
what  Mr.  Darvvm  and  Professor  Huxley  have  written  on  physical 
science,  and  yet  preserve  our  natural  theology  on  exactly  the  same 
basis  as  that  on  which  Butler  and  Paley  left  it.  That  we  should 
have  to  develop  it,  I  do  not  deny.  That  we  should  have  to  relir 
(piish  it,  I  do." 

Extracts  give  a  poor  conception  of  the  lecture,  which  made  a 
profound  impression,  and,  as  private  letters  showed,  gave  hope 
and  comfort  to  many  among  those  who  heard  it  delivered,  or  read 
it  afterwards  in  the  pages  of  "  Macmillan's  Magazine  ;  "  and  re- 
printing it,  as  he  did,  only  a  year  before  his  death,  it  may  be  looked 
on  as  his  last  words  on  his  favorite  topic,  and  a  last  confession  of 
his  faith  that,  If  the  clergy  would  only  play  the  great  "/v/^"  which 
is  before  them,  science  and  the  creeds  would  one  day  shake  hands. 

Scientific  subjects,  and  especially  the  distribution  of  plants,  occu- 
pied him  much  at  this  time,  and  the  success  of  his  botanical  class 
at  Chester  the  previous  year,  decided  him  to  follow  it  up  with 
geology.  He  was  busy,  too,  with  the  proofs  of  his  West  India 
book,  "At  Last." 

The  work  at  Chester  this  year  assumed  larger  proportions,  for 
the  botanical  class  of  1870  had  been  the  nucleus  of  a  Scientific 
Society  in  1871;  his  geological  lectures  were  much  more  fully 
attended,  not  only  the  number  of  members  increased,  but  each 
member  was  allowed  to  bring  a  lady  friend.  Consequently,  in 
preparation  for  walks  and  field  lectures,  he  had  to  go  over  the 
ground  himself  a  day  or  two  before,  to  get  thoroughly  acquainted 
with  its  capabilities  for  geology  and  botany,  and  also  to  arrange  for 
a  place  of  rest  and  refreshment  for  the  class  ;  and  in  these  re- 
searches he  was  always  accompanied  by  his  kind  friend,  the  Pre- 
centor, or  some  member  of  the  Cathedral  body,  who  were  always 
ready  with  loyal  and  intelligent  help.  Expeditions  now  were  tak  ?r, 
to  more  distant  spots  ;  the  railway  authorities  had  to  be  consulted 


42  f  Charles  Kings  ley. 

about  trains — they,  too,  gave  most  willing  help  ,  and,  at  the  ap 
pointed  hour  at  the  place  of  meeting,  a  happy  party,  numberin£ 
sometimes  from  sixty  to  a  hundred,  would  find  the  Canon  and  hij 
daughters  waiting  for  them  on  the  platform  of  the  railway,  he  with 
geological  hammer  in  hand,  botany  box  slung  over  his  shoulder, 
eager  as  any  of  his  class  for  the  holiday,  but  feeling  the  responsi 
bility  of  providing  teaching  and  amusement  (in  the  highest  sense  of 
that  word)  for  so  many,  who  each  and  all  hung  upon  his  words. 

Those  were  bright  afternoons,  all  classes  mingling  together  ; 
people  who  had  lived  next  door  to  each  other  in  Chester  for  years 
perha[)s  without  exchanging  a  word,  now  met  on  equal  and  friendly 
terms,  in  pursuit  of  one  ennobling  object,  and  found  themselves  all 
travelling  in  second-class  carriages  together  without  distinction  of 
rank  or  position,  to  return  at  the  end  of  the  long  summer  evening 
to  their  old  city,  refreshed  and  inspirited,— with  nosegays  of  wild 
ilowers,  geological  specimens,  and  happy  thoughts  of  God's  earth 
and  of  their  fellow  creatures.  Perhaps  the  moral  gain  was  as 
valuable  as  the  scientific  results  of  these  field  lectures,  uniting 
Cathedral  and  town  as  they  did  in  closer  bonds. 

The  thought  of  giving  importance  to  the  society  by  adding  honor- 
ary members  now  occurred  to  the  president,  and  he  wrote  to  Sir 
Charles  Lyell,  Sir  Philip  Egerton,  Dr.  Hooker,  Professors  Huxley, 
Tyndall,  Hughes,  &c.,  whose  distinguished  names  are  all  enrolled 
in  the  Chester  Natural  Science  Society. 

TO     SIR    CHARLES    LYELL. 

Chester,  ymte  22,   1S71. 

"  I  have  a  great  favor  to  ask.  Whether  you  decline  or  not,  I  am 
sure  you  will  not  be  angry  with  me  for  asking.  I  have  just  started 
here  a  Natural  Science  Society — the  dream  of  years.  And  I  be- 
lieve it  will  'march.'  But  I  want  a  few  great  scientific  names  as 
honorary  members.  That  will  give  my  plebs,  who  are  men  of  all 
ranks  and  creeds  of  course,  self-respect ;  the  feeling  that  they  aie 
initiated  actually  into  the  great  freemasonry  of  science,  and  that 
such  men  as  you  acknowledge  them  as  pui)ils. 

"I  have  pr'^  into  the  hands  of  my  geological  class,  numbering 
about  sixty,  y(A\Y  new  '  Students'  Elements.'  I  shall  not  be  rude 
enough  to  comj)liment  you  on  it  ;  but  I  may  say  that  you  seem  in 
it  as  great  as  ever.  These  good  fellows,  knowing  your  name,  and 
using  your  book,  would  have  a  fresh  incentive  to  work  if  t'  ey  bu' 
felt  that  you  were  conscioas  of  their  existence. 

"  Let  me  then  beg  for  your  name,  to  be  proposed  by  ,  ^  as  ar 


Town  Geology.  425 

honorary  member.  I  ask  nothing  more  ;  but  to  give  tliat  would 
be  not  only  to  help  them,  but  to  help  me,  who  already  feel  the 
drag  of  the  collar  (having  to  do  all  myself  as  far  as  teaching  and 

inspiriting  go)  very  heavy 

"  Your  most  faithful  and  loyal  pupil, 

"C.   KiNGSLEY." 

Sir  Charles  not  only  gave  his  name,  but  some  of  his  most  valu 
able  works  to  the  infant  society. 

The  room  hitherto  used  at  the  City  Library  had  now  to  be  given 
tip,  and  by  the  Dean's  kindness  the  King's  School  was  used  as 
lecture-room.  A  preliminary  lecture  on  the  subject  of  physical 
science  was  followed  by  six,  which  will  never  be  forgotten  in 
Chester,  on  The  Soil  of  the  Field,  The  Pebbles  in  the  Street,  The 
Stones  in  the  Wall,  The  Coal  in  the  Fire,  the  Lime  in  the  Mortar, 
The  Slates  on  the  Roof.*  The  black-board  was  in  constant  use. 
Many  of  those  who  were  present  must  recall  the  look  of  inspira- 
tion with  which  his  burning  words  were  accompanied,  as  he  went 
through  the  various  transformations  of  the  coal,  till  it  reached  the 
diamond,  and  the  poetry  he  threw  into  his  theme  as,  with  kindling 
eyes,  he  lifted  a  lump  of  coal  off  the  table,  and  held  it  up  to  his 
breathless  listeners. 

Never  had  a  man  a  more  appreciative  audience — intelligent, 
enthusiastic,  affectionate.  "They  spring  to  touch,"  he  would  say, 
"  at  every  point,"  and  never  did  he  receive  such  a  warm  grasp  of 
the  hand  as  from  men  of  all  ranks  in  the  beloved  old  city.  The 
Chester  residence  was  one  of  the  dearest  episodes  of  his  life,  and 
when  he  was  transferred  to  Westminster  he  could  not  speak  of  it 
without  tears  in  his  eyes. 

The  following  year  the  expeditions  took  place,  but  his  lectures 
were  less  frequent.  The  society,  he  felt,  was  well  established  on  a 
basis  of  its  own  ;  and  with  him,  over-work  of  brain  had  brought  on 
a  constant  lassitude  and  numbness  of  the  left  side,  which  led  him 
to  apprehend  coming  paralysis,  and  forced  him  to  confine  his  work 
more  exclusively  to  preaching  and  the  never-ceasing  corres',.  >ndence. 

It  so  happened  that  the  first  week  of  his  resicence  in  Chester, 
being  always  in  May,  was  the  race-week,  Achich  for  the  time  beinv. 

•  These  lectures,  publislied  in  1872  as  "Town  Geologj,"  were  dcdi  vate<l  tc 
the  men)  hers  of  the  class  he  loved  so  well. 


426  Charles  Kingsley. 

turned  the  streets  of  the  venerable  old  city  intc  a  soit  cf  Pande- 
monium. Trade,  except  in  the  public-houses,  was  stagnant,  and 
tl"e  temptations  of  the  young  men  in  the  middle  and  lower  classes 
fiom  betting  and  bad  company,  with  the  usual  ending  of  a  suicide, 
ard  the  ruin  of  many,  weighed  heavily  on  his  heart,  as  on  that  of 
the  Dean  and  many  of  the  residents.  Most  of  the  respectable 
tradesmen  deplored  the  effect  of  the  race-week,  not  only  on  the 
higher  ground  of  morality,  but  because  the  direct  losses  to  trade 
and  to  the  working  classes  which  resulted  from  it  were  so  serious.  A 
series  of  short  papers  on  "  Chester  Races  and  their  Attendant  Evils" 
were  started,  and  by  the  wish  of  Dean  Hovvson,  Mr.  Kingsley 
took  the  subject  of  Betting  and  addressed  his  letter  "To  the  Young 
Men  of  Chester."     It  is  characteristic,  and  therefore  given  entire  : 

"  betl'ing. a  letter  to  the  young  men  of  chester." 

"  My  dear  Young  Men, 

"  The  human  race  may,  for  practical  purposes,  be  divided  into 
three  parts  : 

"  I.  Honest  men  :  who  mean  to  do  right;  and  do  it. 

"  2.   Knaves  :   who  mean  to  do  wrong  ;  and  do  it. 

"  3.  Fools  :  who  mean  to  do  whichever  of  the  two  is  the  pleas- 
anter. 

"And  these  last  may  be  divided  again  into — 

"  Black  fools  :  who  would  rather  do  wrong  ;  but  dare  not ;  unless 
it  is  the  fashion. 

*'  White  fools  :  who  would  rather  do  right ;  but  dare  not ;  unless 
it  is  the  fashion. 

"  Now  the  honest  men  do  not  need  my  advice  ;  and  the  knaves 
will  not  take  it ;  neither,  I  fear,  will  the  black  fools.  They  will 
agree  in  their  secret  hearts,  most  of  them,  that  every  word  I  say  is 
true.  But  they  do  not  wish  it  to  be  true  ;  and  therefore  they  will 
tell  every  one  that  it  is  not  true,  and  try  to  wriggle  out  from  under 
it  by  far-fetched  excuses,  and  go  back  next  races,  '  like  the  dog  to 
bis  vomit,  and  the  sow  to  her  wallowing  in  the  mire,'  and  bet  and 
gamble  boldly,  because  then  that  will  be  the  fashion.  But  of  the 
white  fools  I  have  hope.  For  they  are  not  half  bad  fellows  :  some 
of  them,  indeed,  are  very  near  being  very  good  fellows,  and  would 
lik/;  so  much  to  do  anything  which  is  right  and  proper — only  it 
takes  so  much  trouble  ;  and  perhaps  it  might  look  rather  odd  now 
and  then. 

"  Now  let  me  ask  them — and  really  I  have  so  much  liking  for 
them,  that  I  fear  at  times  I  must  be  one  of  them  myself — in  all 
friendliness  and  courtesy — Why  do  you  bet  and  ga-nble  at  the 
races?     Consider  well  what  your  answer  will  be.     Certiiinly  it  wiU 


A  Letter  on  Bettiitg.  427 

rot  be  that  you  do  so  to  avoid  trouble,  which  you  so  mucli  dislike 
in  general.  For  you  must  confess  at  once  that  it  is  more  trouble 
to  bet,  more  anxiety,  and  often  more  grief  and  sorrow,  than  it  is 
not  to  bet,  but  to  leave  the  matter  alone.  And  while  you  are  pre 
paring  your  reasons,  I  will  give  )'-ou  two  at  least  of  mine,  for  leav 
iiig  the  matter  alone. 

"  The  first  reason  (which  seems  to  me  the  strongest  reason  which 
can  be  given  against  any  matter  whatsoever,)  is  this — that  betting, 
and  gambling  of  every  kind,  is  in  itself  wrong  and  immoral.  I  do 
not  say  that  every  man  who  bets  is  an  immoral  man.  Far  from  it : 
many  really  honest  men  bet ;  but  that  is  because  they  have  not 
considered  what  they  are  doing.  Betting  is  wrong  :  because  it  is 
wrong  to  take  your  neighbor's  money  without  giving  him  anything 
in  return.  Earn  from  him  what  you  will,  and  as  much  as  you  can. 
All  labor,  even  the  lowest  drudgery,  is  honorable  ;  but  betting  is 
not  laboring  nor  earning  :  it  is  getting  money  without  earning  it, 
and  more,  it  is  getting  money,  or  trying  to  get  it,  out  of  your 
neighbor's  ignorance. 

"If  you  and  he  bet  on  any  event,  you  think  that  your  horse  will 
win  :  he  thinks  that  his  will ;  in  plain  English,  you  think  that  you 
know  more  about  the  matter  than  he  :  you  try  to  take  advantage 
of  his  ignorance,  and  so  to  conjure  money  out  of  his  pocket  into 
yours — A  very  noble  and  friendly  attitude  in  which  to  stand  to  your 
neighbor,  truly.  That  is  the  plain  English  of  it :  and  look  at  it  up 
wards,  downwards,  sideways,  inside  out,  you  will  never  make  any- 
thing out  of  betting,  save  this — that  it  is  taking  advantage  of  your 
neighboi-'s  supposed  ignorance. 

"  But  says  some  one,  '  That  is  all  fair,  he  is  trying  to  do  as  much 
by  me.'  Just  so  :  and  that  again  is  a  very  noble  and  friendly  atti- 
tude for  two  men  who  have  no  spite  against  each  other  ;  a  state  of 
mutual  distrust  and  unmercifulness,  looking  each  selfishly  to  his 
own  gain,  regardless  of  the  interest  of  the  other  I  say,  regardless. 
You  know  whatever  you  lose,  he  will  expect  you  to  pay,  however 
much  it  may  inconvenience  you  :  while  if  he  loses  you  expect  him 
to  pay,  however  much  it  may  inconvenience  him.  Thua  betting  is 
founded  on  selfishness  ;  and  the  consequence  is,  that  men  who  live 
by  betting  are,  and  cannot  help  being,  the  most  selfish  of  men,  and 
(1  should  think)  among  the  most  unhappy  and  pitiable;  for  if  a 
man  who  is  given  up  to  selfishness,  distrust,  and  cunning,  who  xf- 
temi)ted  every  hour  to  treachery  and  falsehood,  without  the  possi- 
trility  of  one  noble  or  purifying  feeling  throughout  his  whole  day's 
work,  or  the  consciousness  that  he  has  done  the  slightest  gocd  tc 
a  human  being — not  even  as  much  good  as  an  old  woman  at  a  stall 
has  by  selling  a  penny-worth  of  applf  ; — if  that  man  is  not  a  piti 
able  object,  1  do  not  know  what  is. 

"  But  some  will  say,  '  It  is  not  the  money  I  care  lor,  but  the 
amusement.'     Excuse  me :  but  if  so,  why  do  you  bet  for  money 


4-28  Charles  Kingsley. 

That  question  I  have  asked  again  and  again,  and  have  never  goi 
an  answer.  Why  do  }'Ou  bet  for  money,  and  not  counters,  or  pins, 
or  pebbles  ?  Wliy,  but  because  you  want  the  money,  to  buy  with  it 
money's  worth? 

"  Of  course,  I  know  well  enough  tliat  plenty  of  bets  pass  on 
every  race,  which  are  practically  quite  harmless.  A  dozen  of  kid 
gloves  to  a  lady — when  you  know  that  she  will  expect  you  to  pay 
her,  while  you  are  bound  not  to  ask  her  to  pay  you — he  would  be 
a  very  strait-laced  person  who  could  see  any  great  harm  in  tnat ; 
any  more  than  in  a  rubber  of  sixpenny  whist.  And  yet  it  would  be 
better  for  many  a  young  man,  for  some  of  the  finest  fellows  of  all, 
men  of  eager  tem])er,  high  spirit,  delicate  honor,  if  they  would 
make  up  their  mind  never  to  bet,  even  a  shilling;  never  to  play 
cards,  except  for  love.  For  gambling,  like  drinking,  grows  upon 
some  men,  and  upon  the  very  finest  natures  too.  And  remember, 
that  in  betting  and  gambling,  the  more  honorable  man  you  are,  the 
worst  chance  you  have  ;  gambling  is  almost  the  only  thing  in  the 
world,  in  which  the  bad  man  is  the  stronger  by  very  virtue  of  his 
badness,  the  good  man  the  weaker  by  very  virtue  of  his  goodness. 
The  man  who  will  not  cheat  is  no  match  for  the  man  who  will. 
The  honorable  man  who  will  pay  his  debts,  is  no  match  for  the  dis- 
honorable man  who  will  not.  No  match  indeed  :  not  even  in  that 
last  sad  catastroi)he,  which  I  have  seen  too  often  :  when  the  hon- 
orable man,  throwing  good  money  after  bad  to  recover  his  losses, 
grows  desperate,  tries  his  hand  just  once  at  foul  play,  and  sells  his 
soul — for  nothing.  For  when  he  borrows  the  knave's  tools,  he 
cannot  use  them  ;  he  is  ashamed  of  himself,  hesitating,  clumsy ; 
is  found  out — as  I  have  known  such  found  out  :  and  then — if  he 
does  not  put  a  pistol  to  his  own  head  and  blow  his  brains  out,  it  is 
not  because  he  does  not  long,  poor  wretch,  to  do  so. 

"  I  hold,  then,  that  betting  is  itself  more  or  less  wrong  and  im- 
moral. But  1  hold,  too,  that  betting,  in  three  cases  out  of  four,  is 
altogether  foolish  ;  so  foolish  that  I  cannot  understand  why  the 
very  young  men  who  are  fondest  of  it,  should  be  the  very  men 
w'ho  are  jjroudest  of  being  considei"ed  shrewd,  knowing,  men  of  the 
world,  and  what  not. 

"  They  stake  their  money  on  this  horse  and  on  that.  Now  judg* 
ing  of  a  horse's  capabilities  is  an  art,  and  a  very  delicate  and  diffi- 
cult art,  depending  first  on  natural  talent,  and  next  on  experience, 
such  as  not  one  man  in  a  thousand  has.  But  how  many  betting 
young  men  know  anything  about  a  horse,  save  that  he  has  four 
legs  ?  How  many  of  then  know  at  sight  whether  a  horse  is  sound 
or  not  ?  \Vhether  he  can  stay  or  not  ?  Whether  he  is  going  in 
good  form  or  not  .-*  Whether  he  is  doing  his  best  or  not  ?  Prob 
ably  five  out  of  six  of  them  could  not  sit  on  a  race-horse  without 
falling  off;  and  then  such  a  youth  pretends  to  himself  that  he  is  a 
judge  of  the  capabilities  of  a  noble  brute,  who  is  a  much  better 


Tricks  in  Horse  Racing,  429 

judge  of  the  young  gentleuan's  capabilities,  ati.;!  wDuld  prove  him- 
self so  within  five  minutes  after  he  had  got  into  the  sadt.le. 

"  '  But  the}'  know  what  the  horse  has  done  already.'  Yes  ,  but 
not  what  the  horse  might  have  done.  They  do  not  know — no  one 
can,  who  is  not  in  the  secrets  of  the  turf — what  the  horse's  engage- 
ments really  are  ;  whether  he  has  not  been  kept  back  in  view  of 
those  engagements  ;  whether  he  will  not  be  kept  back  again  ; ' 
whether  he  has  not  been  used  to  make  play  for  another  horse  ;  and 
—in  one  woi  .^-—whether  he  is  meant  to  win. 

"  '  But  they  have  special  information  :  They  have  heard  sjjort- 
ing  men  on  whom  they  can  rely,  report  to  them  this  and  the  other 
wonderful  secret.'  Of  all  the  various  follies  into  which  vanity, 
and  the  wish  to  seem  knowing,  and  to  keep  sporting  company  lead 
young  men — and  mere  boys  often — this  I  think  is  about  the  most 
absurd.  A  young  lad  hangs  about  the  bar  of  a  sporting  public- 
house,  spending  his  money  in  drink,  in  hopes  of  over-hearing  what 
the  initiated  Mr.  This  may  say  to  the  initiated  Mr.  That — and 
goes  off  with  his  hearsay,  silly  fellow,  forgetting  that  Mr.  This  prob- 
ably said  it  out  loud  to  Mr.  That  in  order  that  he  might  overliear ; 
that  if  they  have  any  special  information,  they  will  keep  it  to  them- 
selves, because  it  is  their  stock-in-trade  whereby  they  live,  and  they 
are  not  going  to  be  foolish  enough  to  give  it  away  to  him.  Mr. 
This  and  That  may  not  be  dishonest  men  ;  but  they  hold  that  in 
betting,  as  in  love  and  war,  all  is  fair ;  they  want  to  make  their 
books,  not  to  make  his  ;  and  though  they  very  likely  tell  him  a 
great  deal  which  is  to  their  own  advantage,  they  are  neither  simple 
enough,  nor  generous  enough,  to  tell  him  much  that  is  to  his  ad 
vantage  ;  or  to  prevent  him  from  making  the  usual  greenhorn's 
book  by  which  he  stands  sure  to  lose  five  pounds,  and  likely  to 
lose  fifty. 

"  '  Ah,  but  the  young  gentleman  has  sent  his  money  on  com- 
mission to  a  prophet  in  the  newspaper,  in  whom  he  has  the  highest 
confidence ;  he  has  prophesied  the  winner  two  or  three  times  at 
least ;  and  a  friend  of  his  sent  him  money  to  lay  on,  and  got  back 
ever  so  much  ;  and  he  has  a  wonderful  Greek  name,  Lynceus,  or 
J'olyphemus,  or  Typhlops,  or  something,  and  so  he  must  know.'  Ah  ! 
^ool,  fool.  You  know  how  often  the  great  Polyphemus  prophe- 
sied the  winner,  but  you  do  not  know  how  often  he  did  not.  Hits 
ci)unt  of  course  ;  but  misses  are  hushed  up.  And  as  for  your  friend 
getting  money  back,  if  Polyphemus  let  no  one  win,  his  trade  would 
stop.  The  question  is,  not  whether  one  foolish  lad  won  by  him, 
but  whether  five-and-twenty  foolish  lads  did  not  lose  by  him.  He 
has  his  book  to  make,  as  well  as  you,  and  he  wants  your  money 
to  pay  his  own  debts  with  if  he  loses.  He  has  his  bread  to  earn, 
and  he  wants  your  money  to  earn  it  with  ;  and  as  for  sending 
him  money,  you  may  as  well  threw  a  sovereign  down  a  '  ^al-pil 
and  expect  it  to  come  up  again  with  a  ton  of  coals  on  its  bark. 


430  Charles  Kiiigsley. 

If  any  young  man  will  not  believe  me,  because  I  ain  a  oarson, 
let  him  read,  in  the  last  chapter  or  two  of  '  Sponge's  Sporting 
Tour,'  what  was  thought  of  the  Enoch  Wriggles  and  Infallible 
Joes,  by  a  better  sportsman  and  a  wiser  man,  than  any  Chestei 
betting  young  gentleman  is  likely  to  be. 

"'Ah,  but  the  young  gentleman  has  a  piivate  friend.  tie 
knows  a  boy  in  Mr.  So  and  So,  or  Lord  the  Other's  stables,  and 
ho  has  put  him  up  to  a  thing  or  two.  He  is  with  the  hoise  day 
and  night ;  feeds  him  \  knows  the  jockey  who  will  rite  him.'  Does 
he  then  ?  What  a  noble  and  trustworthy  source  of  information  ! 
One  on  the  strength  of  which  it  would  be  really  worth  a  lad's 
while  to  disobey  his  father,  make  his  mother  miserable,  and 
then  rob  his  master's  till,  so  sure  must  he  be  to  realize  a  grand 
haul  of  money  !  A  needy  little  stable-boy,  even  a  comfortable  big 
groom,  who  either  tells  you  what  he  does  not  know,  and  so  lies, 
or  tells  you  what  he  does  know,  and  so  is  probably  a  traitor ;  and 
who  in  any  case,  for  the  sake  of  boasting  and  showing  off  his  own 
importance,  or  of  getting  half  a  crown  and  a  glass  of  brandy  and 
water,  will  tell  you  anything  which  comes  uppermost.  I  had  al- 
most said  he  is  a  fool  if  he  does  not.  If  you  are  fool  enough  to 
buy  his  facts,  his  cheapest  and  easiest  plan  must  be  to  invent 
sham  facts,  and  sell  them  you,  while  he  keeps  the  real  facts  for 
his  own  use.  For  he  too  has  his  little  book  to  make  up  ;  and  like 
"very  one  who  bets,  must  take  care  of  himself  first,  with  his  hand 
against  every  man,  and  every  man's  hand  against  him. 

"I  could  say  much  more,  and  uglier  things  still.  But  to  what  I 
have  said,  I  must  stand.  This  used  to  be  the  private  history  of 
small  bettings  at  races  thirty  years  ago  ;  and  from  all  I  hear, 
things  have  not  grown  better,  but  worse,  since  that  time.  But 
even  then,  before  I  took  Holy  Orders,  before  even  I  thought 
seriously  at  all,  things  were  so  bad  that  I  found  myself  forced  to 
turn  my  back  on  race-courses,  not  because  I  did  not  love  to  see 
the  horses  run — in  that  old  English  pleasure,  taken  simply  and 
alone,  I  can  fully  sympathize — but  because  I  found  that  they 
tem])ted  me  to  betting,  and  that  betting  tempted  me  to  company, 
and  to  passions,  unworthy  not  merely  of  a  scholar  and  a  gentle- 
man, but  of  an  honest  and  rational  bargeman  or  collier.  And  I 
have  seen  what  comes  too  often  of  keeping  that  company,  of  in- 
dulging those  passions.  I  have  known  men  possessed  of  many 
virtues,  and  surrounded  with  every  blessing  which  God  could  give, 
bring  bitter  shame  and  ruin,  not  only  on  themselves,  but  on  those 
ihey  loved,  because  they  were  too  weak  to  shake  off  the  one  pas- 
sion of  betting  and  gambling.  And  I  have  known  men  mixed  up 
in  the  wicked  ways  of  the  world,  and  too  often  yielding  to  them, 
and  falling  into  much  wrong  doing,  who  have  somehow  steered 
through  at  last,  and  escaped  ruin,  and  settled  down  into  a  respect- 
able and  useful  old  age,  sin  ply  because  they  had  strength  enough 


All  Gamblhig  Condemtud.  431 

ro  say — 'Whatever  else  I  may  or  may  not  do,  bet  aivi  gamble  1 
will  not.'  And  I  very  seriously  advise  my  good  friends  the  White 
Kools,  to  make  the  same  resolution,  and  to  keep  ii 

"  Your  very  good  friend, 

"C-    KlNGbLEY. 
"February  isi,  1871." 

The  local  papers,  of  course,  took  up  the  subject,  and  he  again 
I  .'plied. 

The  following  letter  to  his  eldest  son,  when  quite  a  boy  at  a  pub 
lie  school,  on  his  telling  his  father  he  had  put  into  a  lottery  without 
thinking  it  any  harm,  will  come  in  appropriately  here,  though  writ- 
ten many  years  before  : 

*'  My  Dearest  Boy, 

"There  is  a  matter  which  gave  me  much  uneasiness  when  you 
mentioned  it.  You  said  you  had  put  into  some  lottery  for  the 
Derby  and  had  hedged  to  make  safe. 

"Now  all  this  is  bad,  bad,  nothing  but  bad.  Of  all  -habits 
gambling  is  the  one  I  hate  most  and  have  avoided  most.  Of  all 
habits  it  grows  most  on  eager  minds.  Success  and  loss  alike  make 
it  grow.  Of  all  habits,  however  much  civilised  men  may  give  way 
to  it,  it  is  one  of  the  most  intrinsically  savage.  Historically  it  has 
been  the  jjeace  excitement  of  the  lowest  brutes  in  human  form  for 
ages  past.     Morally  it  is  unchivalrous  and  unchristian. 

"  I.  It  gains  money  by  the  lowest  and  most  unjust  means,  for  it 
takes  money  out  of  your  neighbor's  pocket  without  giving  him  any- 
thing in  return. 

"  2.  It  tempts  you  to  use  what  you  fancy  your  superior  knowi- 
edge  of  a  horse's  merits — or  anything  else— to  your  neighbor's 
harm. 

"  If  you  know  better  than  your  neighbor  you  are  bound  to  give 
him  your  advice.  Instead,  you  conceal  your  knowledge  to  win 
from  his  ignorance ;  hence  come  all  sorts  of  concealments,  dodges, 
.ieceits — I  say  the  Devil  is  the  only  father  of  it.  I'm  sure,  more- 
over, that  B.  would  object  seriously  to  anything  like  a  lottery,  betting, 
or  gambling. 

"  I  hope  you  have  not  won.  I  should  not  be  sorry  for  you  to 
lose.  If  you  have  won  I  should  not  congratulate  you.  If  you  wish 
to  please  me,  you  will  give  back  to  its  lawful  owners  the  money 
you  have  won.  If  you  are  a  loser  in  gross  thereby,  I  will  gladly 
reimburse  your  losses  this  time.  As  you  had  put  in  you  could  not 
in  honor  draw  back  till  after  the  event.  Now  you  can  give  r.ack 
your  money,  saying  you  understand  that  Mr.  B.  and  your  ^athei 
disapprove  of  such  things,  and  so  gain  a  very  great  moral  influence. 

"Recollect   always  that  the  stock  argument  is  worthless.     It  is 


432  Charles  Kingsley. 

this ;  *  My  friend  would  wir.  from  me  if  he  could,  thertfore  I  have 
an  equal  right  to  win  from  him.'  Nonsense.  The  same  argumeiil 
would  prove  that  I  have  a  right  to  maim  or  kill  a  man  if  only  I  give 
him  leave  to  maim  or  kill  me  if  he  can  and  will, 

*'  I  have  spoken  my  mind  once  and  for  all  on  a  matter  on  which 
I  have  held  the  same  views  for  more  than  twenty  years,  and  trust 
in.  God  you  will  not  forget  my  words  in  after  life.  I  have  seen  many 
a  good  fellow  ruined  by  finding  himself  one  day  short  of  money, 
and  trying  to  get  a  little  by  play*  or  betting — and  then  the  Lord 
have  mercy  on  his  simple  soul,  for  simple  it  will  not  remain  long. 

"  Mind,  I  am  not  the  least  angry  with  you.  Betting  is  the  way 
of  the  world.  So  are  all  the  seven  deadly  sins  under  certain  rules 
and  pretty  names,  but  to  the  Devil  they  lead  if  indulged  in,  in  spite 
of  the  wise  world  and  its  ways. 

"  Your  loving  Pater." 

A  regular  member  of  his  congregation  this  summer  was  Chief 
Justice  Bovill,  who  was  living  in  a  neighboring  parish,  and  drove 
over  on  Sunday  mornings  to  Eversley  Church.  His  devoutness 
made  a  great  impression  on  Mr.  Kingsley,  who  was  much  affected 
by  his  death  in  1873.     He  writes: 

" .  .  .  Poor  dear  Chief  Justice  Bovill  is  dead.  Happy  man  ! 
But  what  a  loss  !  How  well  I  remember  giving  him  the  Holy  Com- 
munion at  Eversley  ;  and  the  face  was  so  devout,  though  boiling 
over  with  humor." 

On  h^s  return  from  Chester  the  quiet  parish  of  Eversley  was 
startled  into  \\q.\\  life  by  the  formation  of  a  camp  in  Bramshill  Park 
and  on  Hartford  Bridge  Flats,  at  the  opening  of  the  autumn  ma- 
nceuvrp*?,  at  which  H.R.  H.  the  Prince  of  Wales  was  not  only 
l)resent,  but  camped  out  with  his  regiment,  the  loth  Hussars. 
The  tumult  of  enthusiasm  and  pride  of  the  little  parish  at  such  an 
€vent  and  the  remembrance  of  the  Prince's  royal  presence  and 
gracious  courtes)'  (which  will  never  be  erased  from  the  annals  of 
Krorsley).  had  scarcely  subsided,  when  the  country  was  electrified 
by  the  ii'^ws  of  H.R.H.  being  struck  down  with  fever  and  at  the 
point  of  death,  and  rector  and  parishioners  grieved  and  prayed 
and  wep'  *.ogether.     But  Mr.  Kingsley's  deep  personal  attachment, 

*  So  stf  J/ng  was  his  feeling  about  gaml^lir.g,  that  he  would  never  in  his  own 
house  al'.aw  a  game  of  cards  to  be  played  for  money.  To  rest  his  brain,  he 
tlways  played  with  his  children  in  the  evening  for  an  hour  or  two- •dominoes, 
backgammon,  patience,  whist,  or  some  other  game  of  cards. 


Loyalty  and  Sanatory  Refoi^m.  433 

independent  of  his  loyal  feelings,  made  it  too  painful  to  him  to  stay 
so  far  away ;  and  he  started  off  to  Lynn,  from  whence  he  could  get 
hourly  news,  and  could  walk  over  daily  to  Sandringham,  sending 
telegrams  on  to  Eversley,  which  were  put  up  on  the  church  door 
and  in  the  window  of  the  village  shop.  When  all  danger  was  over, 
and  the  heart  of  the  whole  nation  rebounded  with  joy  and  thank- 
fulness in  a  way  that  will  stand  in  history  as  something  unexampled, 
he  preached  at  the  Chapel  Royal,  St.  James's,  a  sermon  on 
Loyalty,  which  enabled  him  to  press  the  s abject  of  Sanatory 
Reform  in  connection  with  what,  but  for  God's  mercy,  he  felt  might 
have  been  one  of  England's  greatest  disasters. 

In  the  autumn  he  was  invited,  through  Colonel  Strange,  then  at 
Woolwich  with  the  Royal  Artillery,  to  deliver  a  lecture  at  the  R.  A. 
Institution  there.  With  some  hesitation,  but  with  real  pleasure, 
he  accepted,  and  was  the  guest  of  Colonel  Strange,  with  whom  he 
spent  two  deeply  interesting  days.  He  chose  for  his  subject  "  The 
Study  of  Natural  History."  * 

•Since  published  in  a  voIuTie  of  essa/s-  "  Ilealtli  and  Educntioa." 
38 


CHAPTER  XXVIIL 

1872. 

Aged  53. 

Opening  of  Chester  Cathedral  Nave — Deaths  of  Mr.  Maurice  and  NormaB 
McLeod — Letters  to  Max  Mailer — Mrs.  Luard — Lecture  at  Birininghan 
and  its  Results — Lecture  on  Heroism  at  Chester— A  Poem — The  Athanasian 
Creed. 

The  year  began  at  Eversley  with  the  usual  winter's  parish  work, 
night-schools,  Penny  Readings,  &c.,  which  were  only  interrupted 
by  his  going  to  the  opening  of  Chester  Cathedral,  the  nave  of  which 
had  been  shut  up  for  repairs.     He  writes  on  January  24  : 

"Scribbling  in  Deacle's  study.  Service  this  afternoon  magnifi- 
cent. Cathedral  quite  full.  Anthem,  'Send  out  Thy  Light.' 
Collection,  ;^io5.  Cathedral  looks  lovely,  and  I  have  had  a  most 
happy  day.  Every  one  glad  to  see  me,  and  enquiries  after  you  all. 
I  do  love  this  place  and  people,  and  long  to  be  back  here  for  our 
spring  residence." 

Mr.  Maurice's  death  in  March,  and  Dr.  Norman  McLeod' s, 
saddened  him,  and  warned  him  of  the  consequences  of  an  over- 
worked brain.  "Ah,"  he  said,  on  hearing  of  the  latter,  "he  is  an 
•nstance  of  a  man  who  has  worn  his  brain  away,  and  he  is  gone  as 
I  am  surely  going."  Work  of  all  kinds  seemed  now  10  redouble  ; 
md  the  mere  letters  refusing  sermons,  lectures,  church  openings, 
And  kind  invitations  from  friends  in  England  and  Scotland,  who 
were  eager  to  give  him  the  rest  and  refreshment  which  he  so  sorely 
needed,  gave  constant  employment  to  his  home  secretary.  He 
IcHed  on,  dreaming  of  that  time  of  "learned  leisure"  for  which  a 
Canonry  he  held  should  provide ;  but  which  did  not  as  yet  fall  to 
his  lot  ;  and  those  who  watched  him  most  closely  and  loved  him 
best  felt  that  if  rest  ever  ca-iiie  it  would  come  too  late  "  Better, 
however,"  he  said,  "t^  wear  out  than  rust  ouL" 


Death  of  Mr.  Maurice.  435 

TO    PROFESSOR    MAX    mUlI.KR. 

EvERSLEY,  Fei.  19,  1871. 

"  I  have  read  your  gallant  words  about  Bishop  Patteson  in  the 
Times.  I  did  not  know  him  ;  but  it  is  at  least  a  comfort  to  me  to 
lead  words  written  in  such  a  tone  in  this  base  generation. 

"  By  all  means  let  us  have  a  memorial  to  him.  But  where  ? 
In  a  painted  window,  or  a  cross  here  in  England?  Surely  not. 
Uut  on  the  very  spot  where  he  died.  There  let  the  white  man, 
without  anger  or  revenge,  put  up  some  simple  and  grand  monolith, 
if  you  will ;  something  at  least  which  the  dark  man  cannot  make, 
and  which  instead  of  defacing,  he  will  rather  worship  as  a  memorial 
to  the  Melanesian  and  his  children,  which  they  would  interpret  for 
themselves.     So,  indeed,  '  he  being  dead  would  yet  speak.' 

"Think  over  this.  If  it  please  you  I  will  say  more  on  the 
matter." 

TO    MRS.    LUARD. 
(On  Mr.  Maurice's  Death.) 

April  ^,  1872. 

"Your  letter  to  F.  was  a  comfort  to  me,  as  is  every  word  from 
any  one  who  loved  and  appreciated  him.  You,  too,  saw  that  his 
work  was  done,  I  had  seen  death  in  his  face  for,  I  may  almost  say, 
two  years  past,  and  felt  that  he  needed  the  great  rest  of  another  life. 
And  now  he  has  it, 

"I  see  that  you  were  conscious  of  the  same  extraordinary  per- 
sonal beauty  which  I  gradually  discovered  in  his  face.  If  I  were 
asked,  Who  was  the  handsomest,  and  who  the  most  perfectly  gen- 
tlemanlike man  you  ever  met  ?  I  should  answer,  without  hesitation, 
Mr.  Maurice." 

In  the  autumn  he  went  to  Birmingham,  where  he  had  often  been 
asked  to  give  lectures.  It  was  a  town  for  which  he  had  great 
respect,  as  being  one  of  the  best  drained  in  England,  and  where  in 
all  the  cholera  visitations  there  had  been  the  fewest  cases  of  cholera 
(in  one  visitation  only  one,  and  that  an  imported  case).  He  had 
been  urged,  and  could  not  well  refuse,  to  be  President  of  the  Mid- 
land Institute  for  the  year.  As  President,  he  was  bound  to  give 
the  Inaugural  Address.  The  subject  he  chose  was  the  Science  of 
Health,  and  the  noble  response  given  to  his  lecture,  will  make  it 
long  remembered  in  Birmingham.  Lord  Lyttelton  was  in  the  chair, 
and  received  him  with  marked  kindness.  It  was  one  of*  his  best 
and  most  suggestive  lectures.  Special  reporters  were  sent  down 
by  leading    T^ondon    newspapers,  and  the    following  morning  the 


436  Charles  Kings  ley. 

"Times"  give  him  a  leading  article,  which,  after  speaking  of  othei 
Institutes  and  other  speakers,  adds  • 

"  But  everybody  was  prepared  to  expect  Canon  Kingsley  to 
exhibit  the  development  of  the  Institute  in  a  more  striking  and 
[iicturesque  light.  Every  one  of  his  topics  and  suggestions  appears 
to  US  strictly  in  the  lines  of  an  Inaugural  Address  to  the  Institute 
of  a  great  manufacturing  town  like  Birmingham.  Yet  we  could 
fancy  that  some,  even  among  the  most  hopeful  originators  of  this 
movement,  would  have  opened  their  eyes  upon  hearing  the  acqui- 
sition of  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  languages  urged  as  a  means 
of  making  one's  fortune  in  South  America,  and  on  finding,  put  in 
tlie  first  place,  nearly  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  subjects,  the 
necessity  of  studying  the  laws  of  health  and  strength,  of  physical  suc- 
cession, natural  selection,  and  morbid  degeneracy,  especially  as 
illustrated  in  the  dwarfed  and  enervated  population  of  our  large 
towns,  in  unhappy  marriages,  and  expiring  families.  We  feel  really 
obliged  to  the  Canon  for  taking  the  bull  by  the  horns,  and  telling 
these  townsfolk  some  very  simple  truths,  with  the  further  remark 
that  they  have  only  to  use  their  eyes,  their  memories,  and  their 
understandings,  and  then  they  will  learn  a  great  deal  more  than 
he  can  tell  them." 

The  Lecture  bore  fruit  at  once.  A  gentleman  of  Birmingham 
(a  manufacturer),  who  had  been  long  wishing  to  promote  scientific 
knowledge  among  the  working-classes  of  Birmingham,  and  had 
'ong  deplored  the  ignorance  prevailing  on  the  subject  of  health, 
without  the  idea  occurring  to  him  of  making  it  a  distinct  object  of 
study,  on  hearing  the  address  iuunediately  decided  to  devote  the 
sum  of  2,500/.  to  found  classes  and  Lectures  on  Human  Physiology 
and  the  Science  of  Health,  believing,  with  Mr.  Kingsle)',  that  if 
people's  interest  could  only  be  excited  on  the  subject,  physical 
improvement  would  be  followed  by  moral  and  mental  impiovement, 
and  the  hospitals,  and  even  prisons  and  madhouses,  would  be 
relieved  of  many  cases  which  have  their  origin  in  mere  ignotance 
of  the  laws  of  health  and  physiology. 

The  immediate  result  of  this  lecture  was  perhai^s  the  highcrsl 
earthly  reward  ever  granted  to  him,  and  had  he  lived  to  see  the  still 
greater  results  which  Mr.  Ryland's  letter  point  to,  his  soul  would 
have  been  satisfied.     He  may  see  it  now — God  knows  ! 

The  Cliester  City  Library  and  Reading-room  were  just  now  y^xy 
low  in  funds,  and  in  want  of  modern  books :  and  the  coinnuttec 


LeciMies  oil  Heroism.  43; 

applied  tj  the  Canon  to  help  them  out  of  their  difficulties.     H 
writes  at  once  to  Mr.  Shone  from  Eversley : 

"  Of  course — what  did  I  come  to  Chester  for,  if  not  to  help  in 
such  a  case  ?  Will  you  and  your  friends  make  all  arrangements, 
and  send  me  a  reminder  about  the  beginning  of  November,  that  i 
may  have  time  to  think  over  something  which  may  interest  our  deai 
good  Chester  folk.  I  should  like  you  and  my  friends  to  look 
at  what  I  said  at  the  Midland  Institute,  Birmingham,  about  the 
science  of  health  and  physical  education,  I  spoke  from  long 
knowledge  ;  and  be  sure  we  all  need  to  think  about  the  subject 
very  seriously,  else  our  grandchildren  will  be  by  no  means  such  big 
men  as  you  are  !  " 

Some  days  later  he  writes  :  "  The  subject  of  my  lecture  will  be 
Heroism.  I  mean  it  to  be  a  prologue  to  a  set  of  lectures  which  I 
hope  to  give  at  Chester  during  my  next  residence  "  .  .  .  . 
(in  May,  1873).  This  residence  never  took  place  ;  but  the  I^ec- 
ture  on  Heroism*  was  given  on  November  22,  1872,  most  success- 
fully, as  far  as  its  pecuniary  object,  and  doubtless  it  found  a 
response  in  many  hearts.  The  Duke  of  Westminster,  foremost  as 
usual  in  giving  the  lead  to  all  noble  thought  and  noble  work  in  the 
old  city,  was  in  the  chair.  The  next  evening,  after  attending  the 
last  chapter,  at  which  he  was  ever  present,  the  Canon  gave  a  lec- 
ture on  Deep-Sea  Dredging  to  the  Scientific  Society,  of  which  he 
was  still  president — the  last  words  he  spoke  to  his  beloved  class. 

It  was  a  year  of  hard  work,  and  owing  to  this  and  to  the  increas- 
ing infirmities  of  his  mother,  who  was  in  her  85th  year,  and  lived 
with  him,  he  scarcely  left  home  for  more  than  a  few  days.  The 
three  months  now  at  Chester  and  the  four  yearly  sermons  at  Wind- 
sor, Sandringham,  Whitehall,  and  St.  James's,  made  him  unwilling 
to  give  up  his  Eversley  people  for  a  single  Sunday.  So  that  he  had 
no  intermission  of  work  ;  and  his  only  rest  this  year  was  four  days 
in  the  English  Lakes  in  June,  yachting  for  the  inside  of  a  week  with 
Lord  Carnarvon  in  autumn,  and  a  short  visit  to  his  dear  friends 
General  and  Mrs.  Napier,  at  Oaklands  ;  indeed,  since  he  returned 
from  the  West  Indies,  nearly  three  years  before,  he  had  preached 
every  Sunday  once,  if  not  twice. 

The  late  au.umn  brought  a  time  of  severe  anxiety  and  illness  in 
bis  household ;  but  once  again  before  clouds  thickened,  his  heart 

*  Republished  in  "  Ilealtli  and  Education." 


438  Charles  Kings  ley. 

bubbled  np  into  song,  and  after  the  last  ni^et  of  the  foxhounds,  at 
which  he  was  ever  present,  in  front  of  Bramsh.ll  House — a  sight  he 
had  loved  for  years,  and  to  which  he  always  took  his  children  and 
friends, — he  put  these  lines  into  his  wife's  hands  : 

November  6,  I  S73. 
"THE  DELECTABLE  DAY, 

"  The  boy  on  the  famous  grey  pony, 
Just  bidding  goodbye  at  the  door, 
Plucking  up  maiden  heart  for  the  fences 
Where  his  brother  won  honor  of  yore. 

"  The  w  alk  to  « the  Meet '  with  fair  children. 
And  women  as  gentle  as  gay, — 
Ah  !  how  do  we  male  hogs  in  armor 
Deserve  such  companions  as  they  ? 

"  The  afternoon's  wander  to  windward. 
To  meet  the  dear  boy  coming  back  ; 
And  to  catch,  down  the  turns  of  the  valley. 
The  last  weary  chime  of  the  pack. 

•'  The  climb  homeward  by  park  and  by  moorland. 

And  through  the  fir  forests  again, 
While  the  south-west  wind  roars  in  the  gloamirg, 
Like  an  oceau  of  seething  champagne. 

•'And  at  night  the  septette  of  Beethoven, 
And  the  grandmother  by  in  her  chair, 
And  the  foot  of  all  feet  on  the  sofa 
Beating  delicate  time  to  the  air. 

"Ah,  God  !  a  poor  soul  can  but  thank  Thee 
For  such  a  delectable  day  ! 
Though  the  fury,  the  fool,  and  the  swindler. 
To-morrow  again  have  their  way  !  " 

ITe  was  asked  and  consented  this  year  to  join  the  Comniitt-*r  fu* 
the  Defence  of  the  Athanasian  Creed.  He  had  previously  signed 
addresses  suggesting  a  modification  or  explanation  of  the  danma 
tory  clauses  from  the  Provinces  of  Canterbury  and  York,  when  the 
Creed  seemed  most  in  danger.  This  apparent  ambiguity  of  pur- 
pose created  some  surprise,  but  in  reality  his  views  had  not  changed 
materially  on  this  point  since  he  took  holy  orders. 

Wbile  paying  a  visit  in  Weybridgc  in  1873,  ^^  ^^'^.s  asked  to  wrii« 


A  Character  Album,  439 

some  answers  to  the  following  questions  in  a  book  kept  for  the 
Autographs  of  literary  men.  The  answers  are  chai  acteristic,  and 
therefore  interesting  : 

"  Favorite  character  in  history?     David. 

"  Favorite  kind  of  literature  ?     Physical  science. 

'' Favorite  author?     Spenser. 

"  Favorite  male  and  female  character  in  fiction  ?     (No  answrj 
given.) 

'*  Favorite  artist  ?     Leonardo  da  Vinci. 

*'  Favorite  composer  ?     Beethoven. 

"  Favorite  dramatic  performance  ?     A  pantomime. 

*'  Favorite  public  character  ?     (No  answer  given.) 

"  Favorite  kind  of  scenery  ?     Wide  flats  or  open  sea. 

"  Place  at  home  and  abroad  you  most  admired  ?     Clovelly, 

"  Favorite  reminiscence  ?     July,  1839. 

"  Favorite  occupation  ?     Doing  nothing. 

"  Favorite  amusement  ?     Sleeping. 

"  What  you  dislike  most  ?     Any  sort  of  work. 

"  Favorite  topics  of  conversation  ?  Whatever  my  companio" 
happens  to  be  talking  about. 

"  And  those  you  dislike  most  ?     My  own  thoughts. 

*'  What  you  like  most  in  woman  ?     Womanliness. 

**  What  you  disHke  most  ?     Unwomanliness. 

"  What  you  like  most  in  man  ?     Modesty. 

•*  What  you  dislike  most  ?     Vanity. 

"  The  character  you  most  dislike  ?     Myself 

"  Your  ambition  ?     To  die, 

♦'  Your  ideal  ?     The  One  ideal. 

"  Your  hobby  ?     Fancying  I  know  anything. 

"  The  virtue  you  most  admire  ?     Truth. 

"  The  vice  to  which  you  are  most  lenient  ?     All  except  lying 

"  Your  favorite  motto  or  proverb  ?     *  Be  strong.' 

"  Charles   Kingsley." 

1  [is  year  closed  at  Eversley  with  his  three  children  round  him, 
his  eldest  daughter  having  returned  safe  from  a  long  visit  to  hei 
brother  in  Colorado,  and  a  perilous  journey  with  him  and  some 
American  friends  through  Mexico,  who  were  "prospecting"  for  the 
carrying  on  of  the  narrow  gauge  railway  which  her  brother  had  as- 
sisted in  building  from  Denver  down  to  Colorado  Springs,  and 
which  the  company  hoped  to  take  through  the  heart  of  Mexico 
down  to  the  city  itself.  The  Report  made  by  his  son  on  the  survey 
had  been  a  great  source  of  pride  and  joy  to  his  father,  and  seemed 


440  Charles  Kings  ley. 

to  open  great  prospects  for  his  own  future,  and  for  that  of  civilud 
tion,  which,  however,  were  finally  frustrated  by  the  Mexican  Gov- 
ernment. During  the  last  six  months  the  Rectory  had  the  pleasant 
addition  of  a  young  German  tutor,  who  was  preparing  the  youngest 
boy  for  a  public  school.  Dr.  Karl  Schulze  had  been  all  through  the 
Franco-Prussian  war,  and  had  come  to  England  to  learn  the  lan- 
guage before  settling  in  his  professorship  in  Berlin.  His  society 
was  a  gr°at  pleasure  to  Mr.  Kingsley,  who  in  return  had  the  sains 
magnetic  attraction  for  him,  as  for  all  young  men  who  came  within 
liis  influence. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

1873-4- 
Aged  54-5. 

Harr-jw-on-the-Hil-—Canonry  of  Westminster— His  Son's  Retura— His  Mother'! 
Death — Parting  from  Chester — Congratulations — Sermon  and  Letters  on  Tem- 
perance— Preaching  in  Westminster  Abbey— Voyage  to  America — Easterr 
Cities  and  Western  Plains— Canada — Niagara — The  Prairie — Salt  Lake  Cit> 
— Yo  Semite  Valley  and  Big  Trees — San  Francisco — Illness — Rocky  Moun- 
tains and  Colorado  Springs— Last  Poem— Return  Home— Letter  from  John 
G.  Whittier. 

Some  months  of  this  year  were  spent  at  Harrow,  where  his  youngest 
son  was  at  school,  a  change  to  higher  ground  having  been  recom- 
mended for  some  of  his  family,  to  secure  which  the  Bishop  gave 
him  leave  of  non-residence  :  but  he  went  regularly  for  his  Sundays 
to  Eversley,  and  himself  helped  to  prepare  the  candidates  for  the 
Iirst  confirmation  that,  thanks  to  the  kindness  of  Bishop  Wilber- 
force,  had  ever  been  held  in  his  own  parish  church.  I'he  letters 
are  few  this  year. 

While  at  Harrow  it  was  with  mingled  feelings  that  he  received  on 
Lady  Day  a  letter  from  the  Prime  Minister. 

"  I  have  to  propose  to  you,  with  the  sanction  of  her  Majesty, 
that  in  lieu  of  your  canonry  at  Chester,  you  should  accei)t  the  va- 
cant stall  in  Westminster  Abbey.  I  am  sorry  to  injure  the  people 
of  Chester  ;  but  I  must  sincerely  hope  your  voice  \vill  be  lit;ar(l 
within  the  Abbey,  and  in  your  own  right." 

There  was  a  strong  battle  in  his  heart  between  the  giief  of  giving 
up  Chester  and  the  joy  of  belonging  to  the  great  Abbey,  a  position 
which  included  among  many  advantages  the  blessing  he  had  long 
craved  for,  of  laying  down  his  pen  as  a  compulsory  source  of  income, 
at  once  and  for  all,  and  devoting  his  remaining  writing  powers  and 
strength  to  sermons  alone.  His  feeUngs  are  best  told  in  his  own 
letters.     The  day  before  he  received  Mr.   Gladstone's  letter,  he 


q.42  Charles  Kings  ley. 

had  been  writing  to  a  member  of  his  scientific  class,  his  friend  and 
coadjutor,  Mr.  Shepheard  of  Bridge  Street  Row,  Cf.ester,  en  some 
point  connected  with  his  work  there,  which  ends  thus.  "  Give  my 
love — that  is  the  broadest  and  honestest  word — to  all  tlie  deai 
Cheutc:  folk,  men,  women,  and  children,  and  say  that  I  long  foi 
May  I,  to  be  back  again  among  them."  But  on  the  27th  he  wrote 
in  lower  spirits  : 

"  A  thousand  thanks  for  the  MSS.,  which  have  been  invaluable 
to  me.  The  programme  of  your  Society  for  the  year  makes  me  at 
once  proud  and  envious.  For  now  I  have  to  tell  you  that  1  have 
just  accepted  the  vacant  stall  at  Westminster,  and  shall,  in  a  week 
or  two,  be  Canon  of  Chester  no  more.  Of  course,  I  had  to  take 
it  for  my  children's  sake.  Had  I  been  an  old  bachelor,  I  would 
never  have  left  Chester.  Meanwhile  I  would  sooner  be  Canon  ol 
Westminster  than  either  dean  or  bishop.  But  I  look  back  longingly 
to  Chester.  Shall  we  ever  go  up  Hope  Mountain,  or  the  Halkin 
together  again,  with  all  those  dear,  courteous,  sensible  people  ? 
My  eyes  fill  with  tears  when  I  think  of  it. 

"  Give  them  all  my  love.  1  must  find  some  means,  by  the 
papers  or  otherwise,  of  telling  them  all  at  once  what  I  owe  to  their 
goodness  of  heart. 

"  Ever  yours, 

"  C.    KlNGSLEV." 

His  eldest  son,  to  his  father's  great  joy,  had  just  returned  from  a 
lailway  survey  in  Mexico  for  a  holiday  ;  and  his  aged  mother,  now 
in  her  86th  year,  and  so  long  the  inmate  of  his  home,  just  lived  to 
know  of,  and  rejoice  in,  her  son's  appointment,  and  to  see  her 
grandson  once  more  before  her  death  on  the  i6th  of  April. 

Letters  of  mourning  and  congratulation  poured  in  from  Chester. 
Canon  Blomfield,  the  first  canon  who  welcomed  him  there  in  1869, 
writes  : 

"  Of  course  one  might  expect  that  such  an  event  would  occur, 
8nd  before  very  long.  It  was  quite  clear  that  you  ought  to  be 
lifted  up  to  a  higher  degree  in  the  scale  of  ecclesiastical  preferment, 
and  to  find  a  larger  sphere  for  your  powers.  But  yet,  when  the 
time  comes  to  lose  you  from  Chester,  it  comes  as  a  blow  on  one's 
feelings.  I  don't  know  how  the  Chester  peojile  will  get  over  it. 
They  will  be  like  the  schools  of  the  prophets  when  Elijah  was  taken 
from  them.  We  shall  no  less  miss  you  in  the  cathedral,  and  in  the 
chapter,  and  in  the  matter,  especially  of  the  King's  School.  And 
*Uen  whom  shall  we  have  to  replace  you?"     .... 


Canon  of  Westminster.  443 

Such  words  from  a  man  so  much  his  senior,  and  whom  he  so  deeply 
respected,  are  a  strong  testimony,  and  as  Canon  Blomfield  gene 
rously  writes : 

"  A  sincere  one,  to  a  man,  whom,  to  know,  was  to  love  and  to  rev- 
erence as  one  who  indefatigably  employed  his  great  powers  in  the 
good  of  his  fellow  men  and  for  the  glory  of  God." 

"It  will  be  pleasant,"  says  Canon  Hildyard,  another  valued 
member  of  the  Chapter,  also  his  senior,  "  among  the  regrets  felt  by 
the  Chapter,  to  remember  w]iat  we  had.  I  say  we,  because  1  think 
each  member  of  the  Chapter  will  say  and  think  the  same  of  you  in 
all  your  bearings  to  us.     The  whole  of  Chester  mourns." 

"  I  ought,  my  dear  Mr.  Kingsley,"  writes  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  on  April  9,  "  to  have  written  before  now  to  welcome 
you  to  the  great  Abbey,  which  I  do  very  heartily.  It  is  a  great 
sphere  for  a  man  who,  like  you,  knows  how  to  use  it."     .... 

While  from  his  own  diocese  Bishop  VVilberforce  wrote  : 

"My  dear  Kingsley, 

"I  have  just  seen  an  authoritative  statement  of  your  appoint 
ment  to  the  Canonry  at  Westminster,  and  I  must  tell  you  the 
pleasure  that  it  gives  me.  It  is  so  just  an  acknowledgment  of  your 
merits :  it  gives  so  much  better  a  pedestal  from  which  you  may 
enlighten  many,  that  I  rejoice  unfeignedly  at  it ;  and  then  it  is  a 
great  personal  pleasure  to  me.  I  am  proud  to  have  you  in  my  old 
Collegiate  Church  ;  and  I  hope  it  may  favor  more  of  that  personal 
intercourse  between  us  which  has  been  so  much  increased  since  I 
came  to  this  diocese  (Winchester),  and  which  has  given  me  such 
great  pleasure. 

"  I  am,  my  dear  Kingsley, 
"Yours  most  sincerely,  and  let  me  add  affectionately, 

"  S.  WiNTON." 

The  new  Canon  of  Westminster  little  thought  when  he  read  this 
letter  that  his  first  sermon  in  the  Abbey  after  his  installation  would 
be  one  among  many  public  lamentations  for  the  sudden  death  ol 
his  diocesan. 

The  page  of  his  Chester  life  fitly  closes  with  a  letter  from  Dean 
Ilowson,  whose  never-failing  kindness  and  friendship  he  valued  so 
truly. 

FROM   THE    DEAN   OF    CHESTER, 

"  I  have  been  asked  to  write  a  brief  notice  of  that  part  of  Charles 
Kingsley's  life  whif:h  was  spen'  in  close  connection  with  tl  e  city 


444  Charles  Kingstey. 

and  cathedral  jf  Chestei  ;  and  it  is  a  request— considering  from 
vvhom  it  comes  — concerning  which  I  feel,  not  only  that  I  cannot 
refuse  it,  but  that  it  must  be  a  true  pleasure  to  me  to  act  upon  it  to 
the  best  of  \w^  power.  1  should  be  sorry,  indeed,  if  this  task  had 
been  assigned  to  any  one  else  ;  for  my  own  relations  with  him  here 
were  of  the  hai:)piest  kind,  and  1  have  a  lively  sense  of  the  good 
he  has  left  behind,  as  the  result  of  three  short  official  residences  in 
Chester,  and  a  few  occasional  visits  to  the  place. 

"  Since  the  remarks  in  this  paper  are  necessarily  of  a  personal 
character,  and  since  they  must  relate  particularly  to  the  religious 
bide  of  the  subject,  it  seems  to  me  natural  to  begin  with  the  first 
meeting  which,  so  far  as  I  remember,  I  ever  had  with  Canon 
Kingsley.  This  took  place  at  Cambridge,  I  must  confess  that  at 
that  lime  I  had  a  strong  prejudice  against  him.  I  had  read  'Alton 
Locke,'  on  its  first  appearance,  and  had  thought  it  very  unjust  to 
•^he  University  of  which  both  he  and  I  were  members.  It  seemed 
ro  me  quite  out  of  harmony  with  my  recollections  of  a  place,  from 
which  1  was  conscious  of  having  received  the  utmost  benefit.  1 
must  say  here,  in  passing,  that  the  passages  to  which  I  refer  have 
been  so  modified  by  notes  in  the  last  edition,  that  warm  commen- 
dation has  taken  the  place  of  blame  ;  and  I  am  not  sure  that  the 
pendulum  of  his  strong  feeling  did  not,  on  this  last  occasion,  swing 
too  far  in  its  new  direction.  This,  however,  belongs  to  a  subse- 
quent period.  At  the  time  to  which  I  refer  the  book  remained 
unchanged.  Besides  the  impression  which  it  made  upon  me,  I  had 
acquired  a  general  notion  of  Mr.  Kingsley's  tone  of  mind,  through 
conversation  and  through  casual  reading :  and  the  notion  amounted 
to  this  \  that  1  regarded  him  as  the  advocate  of  a  self-confident, 
self-asserting  Christianity,  whereas  the  view  I  had  been  led  to  take 
of  the  religion  which  has  been  revealed  to  us,  and  which  is  to 
save  us  here  and  hereafter,  was  extremely  different.  Under  these 
circumstances  1  happened  to  be  appointed  Hulsean  Lecturer  at 
Cambridge,  he  being  then  Professor  of  Modern  History.  1  had 
taken  for  my  subject  the  Character  of  St.  Paul ;  and  being,  in  one 
of  my  sermons,  about  to  preach  on  the  Apostle's  '  tenderness  and 
sympathy,'  which,  to  my  mind,  involved  a  sense  of  utter  weakness, 
and  a  continual  self-distrust,  i  was  very  uncomfortable.  1  thought 
that  1  should  be  understood  to  be  preaching  against  Professoi 
Kingsl<;y.  Such  a  course  would  have  been,  to  the  utmost  degree, 
foreign  to  my  feelings;  and  yet  I  was  bound  to  do  justice  to  my 
convictions  concerning,  not  only  St.  Paul's  character,  but  Chris- 
tianity itself,  in  this  respect.  My  surprise,  therefore,  was  great> 
when,  at  the  close  of  the  service,  and  after  the  dispersion  of  the 
congregation,  I  met  Canon  Kingsley  at  the  south  door  of  St.  Mary'^-' 
He  was  waiting  for  me  there,  that  he  might  express  his  sympath) 
with  what  I  had  said  in  the  sermon  ;  and  this  he  did,  not  nierei) 
tv'ith  extraordinary  cordiality,  but  lirerally,  I  may  say,  with  tears  o' 


Dean  Howsons  Memo  vies.  445 

A^jvro/al  It  wa5  a  moment  of  my  life  which  made  a  deep  impres 
sLi.  on  Me.  It  not  only  caused  me  to  be  conscious  that  I  had 
made  a  niisrake,  but  it  formed  in  me  a  warm  personal  regard  foi 
Mr.  Kiijgslcy,  though,  at  that  time,  I  had  no  expectation  of  any 
frequent  opj^ortunities  of  seeing  him. 

"For  soaye  lime  afterwards  our  meetings  were  only  casual,  ar.d 
our  acquaintance  was  very  slight :  and  I  must  confess  that  when  a 
letter  came  to  me  from  him  to  tell  me  that  he  had  been  appointed  a 
Canon  of  Chester,  in  succession  to  Dr.  Moberly,  who  had  been 
made  Bishop  of  Salisbury,  1  was  full  of  fear.  There  seemed  to  me 
an  incongruity  in  the  appointment.  I  fancied  that  there  was  no 
natural  atfinity  between  the  author  of  'Alton  Locke'  and  cathe- 
dral life.  Here  again  I  soon  found  that  I  had  made  a  mistake.  1 
might,  indeed,  have  reflected  that  cathedral  institutions,  even  under 
their  present  restricted  conditions,  have  great  capacity  for  varied 
adaptation,  and  that  1  myself  had  been  diligent  in  giving  expression 
to  an  opinion  of  this  kind.  And  here  1  may  remark  that  the  cathe- 
dral stall  in  question  has  had  a  very  curious  recent  histor}^,  illus- 
trat".ve  of  the  correctness  of  this  remark.  It  has  been  held  in  suc- 
cession by  three  men  of  eminence — Dr.  M'Neile,  Dr.  Moberly, 
and  Mr.  Kingsley — differing  from  one  another  as  much  as  possible 
in  habits  of  thought,  but  in  each  case  with  beneficial  results  to  the 
city  of  Chester,  though  in  very  various  ways. 

•'  Now,  to  describe  particularly  Canon  Kingsley's  work  and  use- 
fulness in  Chester,  I  must  note  first  the  extraordinary  enthusiasm 
Aith  which  he  entered  upon  his  connection  with  the  place.  Ches- 
ter has  certainly  a  very  great  charm  for  an  imaginative  mind,  and 
for  any  one  who  is  fond  of  the  picturesque  aspects  of  history  ;  and 
upon  him  it  told  immediately,  giving  him  from  the  first  a  greater 
delight  than  he  would  have  felt  elsewhere  in  the  work  which  he 
found  here  to  do.  And  with  this  enthusiasm  I  must  note  his  old- 
fashioned  courtesy,  loyalty,  and  respect  for  official  position.  J 
suppose  his  political  and  social  views  would  have  been  termed 
'liberal ; '  but  his  liberalism  was  not  at  all  of  the  conventional  type. 
I  should  have  described  him  as  a  mixture  of  the  Radical  and  the 
Tory,  the  aspect  of  character  which  is  denoted  by  the  latter  woi>l 
being,  to  my  apprehension,  quite  as  conspicuous  as  that  which  is 
denoted  by  the  former.  Certainly  he  was  very  different  from 
the  traditional  Whig.  I  have  spoken  of  his  respect  for  official 
position.  I  believe  that  to  have  caused  inconvenience  to  me,  to 
have  done  what  I  did  not  like,  to  have  impeded  me  in  my  eftbrts 
to  be  useful,  would  have  given  him  the  utmost  pain.  That  he  was 
far  my  superior  in  ability  and  knowledge  made  no  difference.  1 
hai)pened  to  be  Dean,  and  he  happened  to  be  Canon  ;  and  this  was 
^uite  enough,  From  the  first  letter  which  he  wrote  to  me  announ- 
cing his  appointment,  till  the  time  when,  to  our  great  regret,  he 
left  Chester  for  Westminster,  lie  showed  to  me  the  utm  >st  cor  i id- 


44^  Charles   Kings  ley. 

eration.  I  record  this,  that  I  may  express  my  gratitude ;  but  1 
note  it  also  as  a  mark  of  character. 

"The  opportunities  of  usefu'ness,  which  he  found  and  employed 
at  Chester,  were  not  altogether  limited  to  the  city.  He  had  a 
beneficial  relation  to  the  diocese  at  large,  the  mention  of  which 
ought  not  to  be  entirely  omitted.  Mere  popularity  in  a  canon  of 
a  cathedral,  who  is  eminent  for  literary  and  scientific  attainments, 
and  who  is  known  to  take  a  large  and  kindly  interest  in  his  fellow- 
men,  is  no  slight  benefit  to  a  diocese.  But  Canon  Kingsley  did 
useful  work  in  Chester  and  South  Lancashire  by  preaching  at 
choral  festivals,  taking  part  in  the  proceedings  of  scientific  societies, 
promoting  the  restoration  of  the  cathedral  to  which  he  belonged, 
and  the  like.  Under  the  present  system,  indeed,  of  capitular  insti- 
tutions, a  cathedral  cannot  do  as  much  as  might  be  desired  for  the 
diocese  in  which  it  is  placed ;  but  such  general  work  as  was  done 
here  by  Canon  Kingsley,  and  more  especially,  the  spirit  in  which 
he  did  it,  aided  to  diffuse  through  the  neighborhood  the  idea  that 
cathedral  institutions  have  inherently  a  capacity  for  diocesan  ex- 
pansion. 

"  In  the  cathedral  city  itself,  with  which  he  is  connected,  it  is 
desirable  tliat  a  canon  should  do  some  definite  thing,  and  one  which 
is  not  likely  to  be  spoilt  and  broken  by  intermittent  residence.  This 
one  thing,  suitable  to  his  own  tastes,  and  easily  within  the  range  of 
nis  powers,  Canon  Kingsley  perceived  at  Chester  as  desirable  to  be 
done ;  and  he  definitely  did  it  with  all  his  heart  and  with  complete 
success.  V,y  establishing  a  Society  for  the  study  of  Natural  Science, 
he  brought  to  view  much  latent  knowledge,  promoted  co-operation 
among  those  who  had  been  isolated,  encouraged  those  who  knew 
little  to  learn  more,  and  those  who  knew  nothing  to  learn  some- 
thing. He  promoted  these  studies  by  excellent  lectures;  and  his 
personal  help,  readily  rendered  on  every  side,  was  invaluable.  For 
the  making  of  such  assistance  effectual,  he  had  many  high  qualities 
— a  quiet  and  kindly  sympath}^,  a  genial  humor  combined  with 
intense  earnestness,  and  a  disdain  of  the  silly  social  distinctions 
which  separate  those  who  ought  to  be  acquainted  with  one  another. 
He  had  a  quick  eye  for  vegetable  forms,  and  a  large  experience  in 
judging  of  geological  facts.  Others  ma)'^  have  known  more  than  he 
did  of  many  sciences  ;  but  he  could  teach  what  he  knew;  and  he 
had  another  most  important  faculty — he  could  make  othei^s  work. 

"AH  this  enthusiasm  for  Natural  Science — to  revert  to  a  point 
which  was  touched  before — might  at  first  seem  out  of  harmony  with 
the  gtave  and  formal  traditions  of  cathedral  life.  Even  if  it  were 
!50,  there  could  be  no  objection  to  this,  but  rather  a  great  advantage 
in  it.  The  clerical  office  ouglit  to  touch  human  interests  on  every 
side  ;  an  ancient  institution  ought  to  diffuse  light  into  fresh  places  ; 
the  meeting  of  the  old  aud  the  new  never  occurs  more  properly 
ormore  usefully,  than  in  a  cathedral.      But  precedent?  for  what  ha» 


Religious  Life  in   Chester.  44; 

hapi^cned  to  us.  fo  our  great  benefit,  in  Chester,  jire  sup^ilied  b> 
the  (.oiiiiection  ot  Auckland  and  Sedgwick  and  Mozeley  with  Wtst- 
mins.ei  aiid  Norwich  and  Bristol.  In  our  own  cathedral,  too,  then? 
seenio  a  special  invitation  to  associations  of  this  kind.  For  \\u\ 
only  v^o  our  Gurgoyles  and  Corbels  betray  the  general  mediiiival 
interest  felt  of  old  in  animal  and  vegetable  forms,  but  carvings  in 
wood  and  stone,  even  in  the  interior  of  the  church,  show  that  here 
there  was  a  lavish  enjoyment  of  such  observation  and  imitation. 
As  an  illustration  of  what  I  mean  at  this  moment,  I  may  say  thai 
in  this  building  there  aie  monkeys  in  the  midst  of  the  crockets  of 
some  C mopies,  and  tiiat  Canon  Kingsley,  in  the  midst  of  Divine 
Service,  was  once  obseived  to  start,  when  his  eye  caught  the  sight 
of  this  strange  creature  in  an  unexi)ected  place. 

"  But  it  is  vime  now  to  lurn  to  the  religious  and  most  serious  side 
of  his  life  in  Chester;  and  cnis  I  must  say,  he  was  most  careful  and 
conscientious  in  attendaru,e  at  the  cathedral  services,  most  reveren 
tial  in  public  worship,  moiit  diligent  in  preaching.  There  is  a 
reniarkable  ])as!:agt  in  the  sratutes  of  this  cathedral,  which  charges 
the  Dean  and  Canons — and  even  pleads  with  them  '  by  the  mercies 
of  God,'  that  inabinuch  as  the  Divine  Word  is  'a  light  to  our  feel 
and  a  lamp  to  our  path,'  they  be  diligent  in  preaching;  and  though 
the  number  of  seimons  prescribed  in  the  year  is  so  small,  as  almost, 
after  such  a  preanjble,  to  provoke  a  smile,  yet  the  spirit  of  the  in- 
junction is  excellent ;  and  in  this  spirit  Canon  Kingsley  acted.  He 
is  remembered  here  as  a  preacher  of  great  power  ;  he  had  always 
large  congregations,  and  they  tended,  towards  the  end  of  his  time, 
to  increase  rather  than  to  diminish.  Through  his  preaching — in 
consequence  of  his  known  interest  in  science,  and  his  large  sym- 
oathy  with  humanity — religious  truth  found  its  way  to  many  hearts, 
which  otherwise  might  have  been  nearly  closed  to  such  intiuence. 
As  to  the  sermons  themselves,  several  of  those  which  have  been 
iniblished  in  his  volume  of  'Westminster  Abbey  Sermons'  were 
first  preached  here  at  Chester.  I  will  make  mention  of  two,  the 
delivery  of  which  I  remember  very  distinctly.  One  was  preached 
from  the  104th  Psalm,  and  dealt  with  the  subject  of  the  ])hysical 
sutfering  of  the  animals  around  us,  caused  by  their  preying  on  one 
another.  '  The  lions  roaring  after  their  prey  do  seek  their  meat 
frori  God.'  He  felt  keenly  all  the  mystery  of  pain  in  those  creal 
ures  that  had  not  deserved  it  by  sin;  and  yet  he  had  an  imdis- 
turbed  belief  that  God  is  good.  The  other  was  a  sermon  on 
1*1  ayer  :  '  Thou  that  hearest  prayer,  unto  Thee  shall  all  flesh  come.' 
Some  had  doubted,  in  consequence  of  certain  discussions  then 
recent,  whether  the  preacher  did  not  so  limit  the  use  of  prayer,  as 
to  cause  it  really  to  be  no  comfort  to  us  at  all.  But  those  who 
heard  this  sermon  found  their  doubts  on  this  subject  removed 
Speaking  from  my  own  j)oint  of  view,  I  by  n  >  means  say  tha*'  I 
always  agreed  with  Canon  Kingsley's  mode  of  preserting  Divine 


4-4^^  Chivies  Kings  ley. 

Truth,  and  of  arranging  its  proportions  ;  but  there  was  fai  lesi 
divergence  between  us  than  I  had  expected  to  find  ;  and  he  ex- 
hibited, with  more  force  than  any  one  else  that  I  have  ever  heai'i, 
certam  aspects  of  Christianity,  which  to  both  of  us  seemed  of  the 
utmost  importance. 

"  In  connection  with  his  efforts  f.'^:  the  moral  and  religious  beni- 
fit  of  the  people  of  this  place  I  must  mention  one  suDJect,  wir.<  li 
to  me  is  of  overwhelming  interest,  and  which  no  reasonable  ni:ui 
can  say  is  unimportant.  I  refer  to  the  Chester  Races,  which,  lo 
speak  in  plain  English  and  in  simple  words,  hinder  here  everything 
that  is  good,  and  promote  everything  that  is  bad.  It  is  not  my 
business,  in  this  place,  to  say  much  of  my  own  strong  convictions 
upon  this  subject ;  but  I  may  record,  with  grateful  satisfaction,  the 
harmony  which  subsisted  regarding  it  between  Canon  Kingsley  and 
myself.  He  was  well  acquainted  with  the  whole  subject  of  modern 
Horse-racing  ;  and  he  deserved  to  be  listened  to  when  he  main 
tained  that,  instead  of  being  a  manly  sport,  it  had  become  a  selfish 
and  fraudulent  trade.  Among  the  efforts  which  were  made  during 
his  connection  with  Chester,  to  give  a  right  direction  to  public 
opinion  in-  this  matter,  and  to  diminish  the  mischief  caused  heie 
by  the  system,  some  small  pamphlets  were  published,  exhibiting 
its  evils  on  various  sides.  Canon  Kingsley  wrote  one  on  *  Betting.' 
It  was  very  short,  but  it  was  admirable  ;  and  I  think  an  account 
of  his  life  would  be  incomplete  without  a  notice  of  this  small  pub- 
lication. 

"  Before  I  conclude,  I  must  refer  to  the  good  done  here  by  Can 
on  Kingsley,  through  remarks  made  in  the  course  of  casual  con- 
versations. Great  effects  are  produced  in  this  way  by  certain  men  j 
and  he  p''oduced  them  without  being  aware  of  it.  I  will  simply 
give  two  slight  illustrations,  each  having  reference  to  Science.  On 
being  asked  how  he  reconciled  Science  and  Christianity,  he  said, 
'  By  believing  that  God  is  love.'  On  another  occasion,  when  the 
slow  and  steady  variation  of  Mollusca,  traced  from  stratum  to  stra- 
tum, was  pointed  out  by  a  friend,  with  the  remark  that  Darwin's 
explanation  would  hardly  be  considered  orthodox,  he  observed, 
'  My  friend,  God's  orthodoxy  is  truth  ;  if  Darwin  si)eaks  the  truth, 
he  is  orthodox.'  I  may  remark  here  that  Kingsley's  bent  was,  in 
his  own  opinion,  more  towards  Science  than  towards  Literature. 
He  once  said  something  to  this  effect,  that  he  would  rather  be  low 
on  the  roll  of  Science  than  high  on  that  of  Literature. 

*'  This  is  a  poor  and  inadequate  account  of  a  passage  in  Canon 
Kingsley's  life,  which  was  productive  of  great  good  in  one  particu- 
lar city  and  neighborhood,  and  which  has  left  among  us  here,  in 
one  sense  indeed,  a  very  sorrowful,  but,  in  a  higher  sense,  a  very 
cheerful,  recollection.  ■■  Various  facts  and  incidents,  tor  which  room 
cannot  here  be  found,  might  have  been  mentioi.fd,  as,  for  instance, 
}\is  w-arm  and  practical  interest  in  the  development  of  our  CatliedraJ 


Farewell  to   Chester. 


449 


School,  which,  under  its  new  conditions,  has  already  entered  upon 
a  successful  career  ;  or,  again,  the  general  lectures  which  he  deliv- 
ered in  Chester  to  audiences  far  larger  than  can  commonly  be  as- 
sembled here  for  such  a  purpose.  But  my  aim  has  been  simply  to 
give  a  truthful  impression  of  the  life,  and  character,  and  work, 
which  we  observed,  and  from  which  we  have  derived  advantage.  It 
must  be  added,  in  conclusion,  that  three  permanent  memorials  of 
Charles  Kingsley  have  been  established  in  Chester.  On  his  scien- 
tific side  he  is  commemorated  by  a  prize  founded  in  connection 
with  the  Natural  History  Society  which  he  established  :  on  his  lit- 
erary side  by  a  marble  bust,  executed  by  Mr.  Belt,  which  is  to  be 
placed  in  the  Cathedral  Chapter-house  ;  while  the  religious  aspect 
of  his  life  and  work  are  suitably  recorded,  in  the  midst  of  the  beau- 
tiful tabernacle-work  of  the  cathedral,  by  a  restored  stall  which 
bears  his  name.  His  best  and  most  faithful  memory,  however, 
remains  in  the  seeds  of  good  which  he  has  sown  in  the  minds  and 
hearts  of  those  over  whom  his  influence  was  exerted." 

In  July  he  went  to  Chester  to  say  good-bye,  and  to  join  the 
Nave  Choir  and  Scientific  Society  in  an  excursion  into  Wales. 

His  kind  friends  insisted  on  his  still  keeping  the  office  of  Presi- 
dent to  the  Scientific  Society.  Professor  Hughes  is  his  distin- 
guished successor,  who  closed  his  Inaugural  Lecture  in  1874  with 
these  words  : 

''  Let  us  then  try  to  carry  on  our  Society  in  the  spirit  that  pei- 
vaded  all  the  work  of  him  to  whom  this  Society  owes  everything — 
whose  loss,  when  last  I  came  among  you  we  had  so  recently  to  de- 
plore ;  a  spirit  of  fearless  and  manly  grappling  with  difficulties — a 
spirit  of  vigorous,  prompt,  and  rigorous  carrying  out  of  whatever 
was  taken  in  hand — a  spirit  of  generous  and  hearty  co-operation 
with  fellow-workers — a  wide  range  of  interests — not  meaning  by 
this,  scattered  desultory  thought — but  thought,  like  Napoleon's, 
ready  to  be  concentrated  at  once  where  the  battle  must  be  fought." 

Some  of  Canon  Kingsley's  friends  in  their  congratulations  eX' 
pressed  the  hope  that  this  distinction  might  be  a  stepping  stone  to 
a  higher  post,  but  he  had  no  ambition  beyond  a  stall  at  Westmin- 
ster and  the  Rectory  of  Eversley. 

"  A  thousand  thanks,"  he  says  to  Sir  Charles  Bunbury,  '  for 
your  congratulations,  and  Lady  Bunbury's.  Let  me  assure  you 
that  your  view  of  my  preferment,  as  to  its  -giving  me  freer  access  to 
scientific  society,  libraries,  &c.,  is  just  mine,  with  this  addition, 
that  it  will  give  me  freer  access  to  you.  So  far  from  looking  on  i( 
29 


450  Charles  Kingsley. 

as  an  earnest  of  future  preferment,  I  acquiesce  in  it  as  all  I  want, 
and  more  than  I  deserve.  What  better  fate  than  to  speed  one's 
old  age  under  the  shadow  of  that  Abbey,  and  close  to  the  highest 
mental  activities  of  England,  with  leisure  to  cultivate  myself,  anc' 
write,  if  1  will,  deliberately,  but  not  for  daily  bread  ?  A  deanery 
or  bishopric  would  never  give  me  that  power.  It  cannot  be  bettet 
than  it  is  ;  and  most  thankful  to  God  am  I  for  His  goodness." 

To  him  in  his  great  humility  the  outburst  of  sympathy  on  all 
sides  was  only  a  surprise :  while  to  those  who  knew  the  history  of 
his  life  it  was  a  triumph,  which  wiped  out  many  bitter  passages  in 
the  past,  but  a  triumph  tempered  by  the  fear  that  it  came  too  late 
to  save  the  overstrained  brain.  The  candle  had  already  burnt 
down,  and  though  light  and  flame  still  flared  up,  it  flared  as  from 
the  socket.  His  eldest  son  returning  at  the  moment  to  share  in 
the  joy  of  his  father's  elevation,  was  so  much  struck  with  his 
broken  appearance,  that  he  urged  upon  him  rest  and  change  and  a 
sea  voyage  before  he  entered  on  a  position  of  fresh  responsibility. 
This,  however,  he  refused,  though  it  was  strongly  recommended  by 
medical  advisers,  and  decided  not  to  go  to  America  till  the  follow- 
ing year,  when  the  repairs  of  both  homes — at  Eversley  and  the 
house  in  the  Cloisters,  would  oblige  him  to  take  a  holiday. 

He  preached  in  the  Abbey  for  the  Temperance  Society  *  in 
April,  for  which  at  once  he  put  himself  under  the  orders  of  his 
Dean.      To  it  this  letter  refers. 

Eversley,  4/*'''''^  23,  1873. 
"My  dear  Dean, 

"  Many  thanks  for  your  letter  and  its  instructions,  which  I  wil'. 
follow.     Kindly  answer  me  this — to  me  important — question. 

"  Have  you  any  objection  to  my  speaking,  in  my  sermon,  in 
favor  of  opening  the  British  Museum,  &c.,  to  the  public  on  Sunday 
afternoons  ?  Of  course  I  shall  do  so  without  saying  anything  vio- 
lent or  uncharitable.  But  I  have  held  very  strong  and  deliberate 
opinions  about  this  matter  for  many  years;  and  think  that  the 
opening  of  these  Public  Institutions  would  not  only  stop  a  great 
deal  of  Sunday,  and  therefore  of  Monday  drunkenness,  but  would 
— if  advocated  by  the  clergy — enable  the  Church  to  take  the  wind 
out  of  tne  saik  of  the  well-meaning,  but  ignorant,  Sunday  League, 


*  Tliis  sermon  was  i:he  foundation  of  a  valuable  article  in  "  Good  Words,*' 
called  tlie  "  Tree  of  Knowledge,"  since  pub!i$hei  in  the  volume,  "  Health  vcA 

Education." 


The  Question  of  Total  Abstinetice.         451 

Bnj  prove  herself — what  she  can  prove  herself  in  other  matters  if 
•ihe  has  courage — the  most  liberal  religious  body  in  these  islea 
But  if  you,  with  your  superior  savoir-faire,  think  it  better  for  me  to 
be  silent  as  yet,  I  obey." 

On  the  same  subject  he  writes  to  J.  Barfleet,  Esq.,  J.P.,  ol 
VVorcester ; 

'*  I  am  not  a  *  total  abstainer ; '  but  that  does  not  prevent  ni) 
w  ishing  the  temperance  movement  all  success,  and  wishing  success, 
also,  to  your  endeavor  to  make  people  eat  oatmeal.  I  am  sorry  to 
say  that  they  will  not  touch  it  in  our  southern  counties ;  and  that 
their  food  is  consequently  deficient  in  phosphates  and  they  in  tone, 
in  comparison  with  the  northern  oatmeal  eating  folk,  who  are  still 
a  big-boned  race. 

"  I  have  told  them  this  ;  and  shall  again.  For  growing  children 
oatmeal  is  invaluable.  Meanwhile,  we  must  not  forget  to  supply 
the  system  with  hydro-carbons  (especially  if  we  lessen  the  quantity 
.  of  beer)  in  order  to  keep  the  fire  alight,  or  we  get  a  consumptive 
tendency,  as  in  many  oatmeal  eating  Scotch,  who,  with  tall  and 
noble  frames,  die  of  consumption,  because  they  will  not  eat  bacon,  or 
any  fats  in  sufficient  quantity.  Hence  not  only  weakness  of  tissue, 
but  want  of  vital  heat,  and  consequent  craving  for  whiskey.  The 
adjustment  of  the  elements  of  food  in  their  right  proportions  is  almost 
the  most  important  element  in  ensuring  temperance."     .... 

His  first  residence  at  Westminster  was  in  September,  during  a 
lime  in  which  London  was  considered  "  empty."  He  preferred 
these  quiet  months,  as  the  congregations  were  composed  chiefly  of 
men  of  the  middle  and  lower  class,  whose  ear  he  wished  to  gain,  and 
preached  during  September  and  November  to  vast  congregations 
wice  a  day.     Speaking  of  this,  he  says  : — 

"  I  got  through  the  sermons  without  any  bodily  fatigue,  and 
certainly  there  were  large  congregations  worth  speaking  to.  But 
the  responsibility  is  too  great  for  me,  and  I  am  glad  I  have  only  two 
months'  residence,  and  that  in  a  quiet  time.  What  mu'-*"  it  be  in 
May  and  June  ?" 

To  his  wife,  who  was  ill  in  the  country,  he  writes  from  the  Clois- 
ters in  November  : 

"  I  ought  to  have  written  yesterday,  but  I  was  very  busy  with  two 
sermons  and  early  communion.  The  sermons,  I  am  assured,  were 
heard,  and  R.  says,  the  attention  of  the  congregation  was  great.  li 
I  find  I  can  get  the  ear  of  that  congregation,  it  will  be  a  work  tc 


4-52  Charles  Kingsley. 

live  for,  for  the  rest  of  my  life.  What  more  can  a  man  want? 
And  as  for  tliis  house,  the  feeUng  of  room  in  it  is  most  pleasait,  and 
the  beauty  outside  under  this  dehcious  gleamy  weather,  quite  lifts 

my  poor  heart  up  a-while I  regret  much  that  I  am 

leaving  just  as  I  seemed  to  be  getting  hold  of  people.  But  I  do 
not  think  I  could  have  stood  the  intense  excitement  of  the  Sundays 
much  longer." 

His  last  sermon  in  1873  in  the  Abbey  was  on  "The  Beatific 
Vision,"  and  those  who  heard  him  were  impressed  by  the  deep 
solemni'.y  of  his  words  and  manner  as  he,  in  prospect  of  leaving 
Europe,  bade  farewell  to  a  congregation  which  he  had  already  begun 
to  love.* 

In  the  autumn  he  wrote  three  articles  on  Health,  Physical  Edu- 
cation, and  Sanitary  subjects,  to  which  and  to  his  sermons  he 
proposed  to  devote  the  remaining  years  of  his  life,  and  made  prepa- 
rations for  his  American  journey  ;  and  in  December  he  returned  to 
Eversley  with  his  family,  and  remained  till  the  end  of  January,  when 
he  and  his  eldest  daughter  sailed  for  New  York,  taking  with  iiim  a 
few  lectures,  to  meet  his  expenses. 

This  Poem,  written,  but  not  corrected  for  the  press,  is  the  only 
one  he  composed  this  year  : 

JUVENTUS  MUNDI. 

List  a  tale  a  fairy  sent  us 

Fresh  from  dear  Mundi  Juventus. 

When  Love  and  all  the  world  was  young, 

And  birds  conversed  as  well  as  sung  ; 

And  men  still  faced  this  fair  creation 

With  humor,  heart,  imagination. 

Who  come  hither  from  Morocco 

Every  spring  on  the  Sirocco  ? 

In  russet  she,  and  he  in  yellow, 

Singing  ever  clear  and  mellow, 

Sweet,  sweet,  sweet,  sweet,  sweet  you,  sweet   yoa 

Did  he  beat  you  ?     Did  he  beat  you  ? 

Phyllopneustes  wise  folk  call  them, 

But  don't  know  what  did  befal  them, 

Why  they  ever  thought  of  coming 

All  that  way  to  hear  gnats  humming. 


*  f  his  sermon,  with  others,  form  the  volume  of  "  Westminster  Sennoni,* 
«  aich  appeared  in  1874,  published  by  Messrs.  Macmillan. 


yuventus  Mundi.  453 

Why  they  build  not  nests  but  hoi  *es, 

Like  the  bumble-bees  and  mousies. 

Nor  how  little  birds  got  wings, 

Nor  wha;  'tis  the  small  cock  sings — 

How  should  they  know — stupid  fogits  i 

They  daren't  even  believe  in  bogies. 

Once  they  were  a  girl  and  boy, 

Each  the  other's  life  and  joy. 

He  a  Daphnis,  she  a  Chloe, 

Only  they  were  brown,  not  snowy, 

Till  an  Arab  found  them  playing 

Far  beyond  the  Atlas  straying, 

Tied  the  helpless  things  together, 

Drove  them  in  the  burning  weather. 

In  his  slave-gang  many  a  league, 

Till  they  dropped  from  wild  fatigue. 

Up  he  caught  his  wh'.p  of  hide, 

Lashed  each  soft  brown  back  and  sid« 

Till  their  little  brains  were  burst 

With  sharp  pain,  and  heat,  and  thirst 

Over  her  the  poor  boy  lay. 

Tried  to  keep  the  blows  away. 

Till  they  stiffened  into  clay. 

And  the  ruffian  rode  away  : 

Swooping  o'er  the  tainted  ground, 

Carrion  vultures  gathered  round. 

And  the  gaunt  hyenas  ran 

Tracking  up  the  caravan. 

But — Ah,  wonder  !  that  was  gone 

Which  they  meant  to  feast  upon. 

And,  for  each,  a  yellow  wren, 

One  a  cock,  and  one  a  hen. 

Sweetly  warbling,  flitted  forth 

O'er  the  desert  toward  the  north. 

But  a  shade  of  bygone  sorrow. 

Like  a.  dream  upon  the  morrow. 

Round  his  tiny  brainlet  clinging, 

Sets  the  wee  cock  ever  singing 

Sweet,  sweet,  sweet,  sweet,  sweet   you,  sweet   yoa, 

Did  he  beat  you  ?     Did  he  beat  you  ? 

Vultures  croaked,  and  hopped  and  flopped. 

But  their  evening  meal  was  stopped. 

\nd  the  gaunt  hyenas  foul, 

Sat  down  on  their  tails  to  howl. 

Northward  towards  the  cool  spring  wea'  her. 

Those  two  wrens  fled  on  together. 


454  Charles  Kings  ley. 

On  to  England  o'er  the  sea, 
Where  all  folks  alike  are  free. 
There  they  built  a  cabin,  wattled 
Like  the  huts  where  first  they  prattlssd. 
Hatched  and  fed,  as  safe  as  may  be. 
Many  a  tiny  feathered  baby. 
But  in  autumn  south  they  go 
Pass  the  Straits,  and  Atlas'  snow. 
Over  desert,  over  mountain, 
To  the  palms  beside  the  fountain, 
Where,  when  once  they  lived  before,  he 
Told  her  first  the  old,  old  story. 
What  do  the  doves  say  ?     Curuck-Coo, 
You  love  me  and  I  love  you. 

EvERSLEY,  January  7,  1S74. 

"...  We  sail  on  the  291^,"  he  writes  to  Professor  New- 

ton ;  "we  go  in  April  or  May  (when  the  prairie  is  in  flower)  to 
San  Francisco,  and  then  back  to  Denver  and  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains south  of  Denver,  and  then  straight  home. 

"  Tell  us  if  we  can  do  anything  for  you.  ...  I  think  you 
have  ordered  a  pair  of  Asaliia  sheep-horns  alread)',  we  will  do  our 
best,  .  .  .  and  have  friends  who  wih  do  their  best  for  you 
after  we  are  gone." 

The  notes  of  the  journey  are  made  by  his  daughter,  and  form  the 
connecting  thread  between  his  own  letters  home  : 

"We  arrived  at  Sandy  Hook  late  on  the  loth  Feb.,  and  on  the 
morning  of  the  nth  landed  at  New  York  ;  and  here,  before  my 
father  set  foot  on  American  soil,  he  had  a  foretaste  of  the  cordial 
welcome  and  generous  hospitality  which  he  experienced  everywhere, 
without  a  single  exception,  throughout  the  six  months  he  spent  in 
the  United  States  and  Canada.  The  moment  the  ship  warped  into 
lier  dock  a  deputation  from  a  literary  club  came  on  board,  took 
possession  of  us  and  our  baggage,  and  the  custom-house  authorities 
passed  all  our  trunks  without  looking  at  them.  We  went  out  later 
in  the  day  to  stay  at  Staten  Island  with  Mr.  F.  G.  Shaw,  where  we 
stayed  till  the  14th,  going  to  New  York  on  that  day  for  a  dinnei 
and  reception  given  in  my  father's  honor  by  the  Lotus  Club." 

Staten  Island,  February  12. 

**  I  have,  thank  God,  nothing  to  write  but  what  is  pleasant  and 
hopeful.     We  got  here  yesterday  afternoon,  and  I  am  now  writing 


Arrival  iii  the  United  States.  455 

in  a  blazing,  sunny,  south  window,  in  a  luxurious  little  room,  in  a 
luxurious  house,  redolent  of  good  tobacco  and  sweet  walnut-wood 
smoke,  looking  out  on  a  snow-covered  lawn,  and  trees,  which 
like  the  people,  are  all  English,  with  a  difference.  I  have  met 
wi*^h  none  but  pleasant,  clever  people  as  yet,  afloat  or  ashore,  and 
Mr.  Curtis  (Mr.  Shaw's  son-in-law,  and  an  old  friend  of  Thack- 
eray's,) a  very  handsome,  cultivated  man. 

"  As  for  health,  this  air,  as  poor  Thackeray  said  of  it,  is  like 
champagne.  Sea-air  and  mountain  air  combined,  days  already 
an  hour  longer  than  in  England,  and  a  blazing  hot  sun  and  blue 
sky.  It  is  a  glorious  country,  and  I  don't  wonder  at  the  people 
being  proud  of  it. 

To-day  R.  and  I  go  into  New  York  by  steamer  to  see  various 
people  and  do  business ;  and  out  again  before  dinner,  to  meet  a 
very  gentleman-like  clergyman  of  this  place,  once  rector  of  San 
Francisco.  I  enclose  a  log  and  chart  of  the  voyage  which  should 
interest  and  teach  Grenville,  for  whom  it  is  intended.  1  dine 
with  the  Lotus  Club  on  Saturday  night,  and  then  start  for  Boston 
with  R.  to  stay  with  Fields  next  week." 

"  On  Monday  evening,  after  a  busy  day  in  Boston,  we  went  out 
to  Salem,  fifteen  miles  by  train,  and  my  father  was  particularly 
struck  and  interested  by  the  recurrence  of  the  old  Fen  names,  with 
which  he  was  familiar  from  his  early  childhood,  on  that  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  and  made  me  notice,  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  the  difference 
between  the  New  World  and  Old  World  Lynn,  etc.,  etc.  Through 
the  whole  of  his  stay  in  America  the  recurrence  of  the  Old  World 
names  of  places  and  people  were  a  never-failing  source  Ox'"  interest 
and  pleasure  to  him 

"  On  the  i8th  we  went  out  to  Cambridge,  and  spent  the  next 
few  days  there  with  some  friends,  my  father  going  in  and  out  to 
15oston,  and  spending  one  night  at  Andover  and  another  at  George- 
town. At  Georgetown,  the  lady  with  whom  he  was  to  stay  being 
ill,  he  went  to  the  village  inn,  and  told  me  that  the  great  question 
of  hard  money  v.  paper  had  been  quaintly  brought  to  his  notice  by 
the  landlord's  little  child  of  six  or  seven,  who  sat  on  his  knee  play 
ing  with  his  watch  chain,  and  finding  among  his  seals  an  old  Span- 
ish gold  doubloon,  cried,  '  See,  father,  the  gentleman  has  got  a 
cent  on  his  chain  ! '  never  having  seen  a  gold  coin  before.  He 
took  the  greatest  interest  in  the  Agassiz  Museum  at  Cambridge. 
his  only  regret  being  that  he  had  conre  to  America  two  months  too 
late  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  its  founder.     The  joyous  young 


456  Charles  Kings  ley. 

life  of  the  university  with  which  he  was  surrounded,  together  <vith 
the  many  distinguished  Americans  with  whom  he  made  or  renewed 
acquaintance,  made  these  days  exceedingly  pleasant  to  my  father, 
and  it  was  with  real  regret  that  he  left  Cambridge  on  the  25th. 

"  We  broke  our  journey  at  Springfield,  staying  there  one  night 
as  the  guests  of  Mr.  Samuel  Bowles,  of  the  celebrated  Springfield 
Republican  newspaper,  and  reached  New  York  again,  to  stay  with 
our  kind  friends  Professor  and  Mrs.  Botta." 

Dr.  Wharton's,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  February  19,  1874. 

'*  Here  is  a  little  haven  of  rest,  where  we  arrived  last  night. 
Longfellow  came  to  dinner,  and  we  dine  with  him  to-night.  Yester- 
day, in  Boston,  dear  old  Whittier  called  on  me  and  we  had  a  most 
loving  and  like-minded  talk  about  the  other  world.  He  is  an  old 
saint.  This  morning  I  have  spent  chiefly  with  Asa  Gray  and  his 
plants,  so  that  we  are  in  good  company. 

"  New  York  was  a  great  rattle,  dining,  and  speechifying,  and 
being  received,  and  so  has  Boston  been  ;  and  the  courtesy,  and 
generosity,  and  compliments  would  really  turn  any  one's  head  who 
was  not  as  disgusted  with  himself,  as  I  always  (thank  God,)  am 
The  Westminster  lecture  is  the  only  one  I  have  given  as  yet. 
Salem  was  very  interesting,  being  next  to  Plymouth,  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers'  town.  People  most  intelligent,  gentle,  and  animated. 
They  gave  me  a  reception  supper,  with  speeches  after,  and  want  us 
to  come  again  in  the  summer  to  their  Field  Naturalists'  Club.  New 
England  is,  in  winter  at  least,  the  saddest  country,  all  brown  grass, 
ice-polished  rocks,  sticking  up  through  the  copses,  cedar  scrub,  low, 
swampy  shores ;  an  iron  land  which  only  iron  people  could  have 
settled  in.  The  people  must  have  been  heroes  to  make  what  they 
have  of  it.  Now,  under  deep  snow,  it  is  dreadful.  But  the  sum- 
mer, they  say,  is  semi-tropic,  and  that  has  kept  them  alive.  And, 
indeed  already,  though  it  is  hard  frost  imder  foot,  the  sun  is  bright, 
and  hot,  and  high,  for  we  are  in  the  latitude  of  Naples  !  I  cannot 
tell  you  a  thousandth  part  of  all  I've  seen,  or  of  all  the  kindness 
we  have  received,  but  this  I  can  say,  that  R.  is  well,  and  that  I 
feel  better  than  I  have  felt  for  years  ;  but  Mr.  Longfellow  and 
others  warn  me  not  to  let  this  over-stimulating  climate  tempt  me 
to  over-work.  One  feels  ready  to  do  anything,  and  then  suddenlj* 
very  tired.     But  I  am  at  rest  now.     .     .     ." 

New  York,  March  i,  1874. 

«' .  .  .  .  We  made  great  friends  with  Asa  Gray  and  arc 
going  to  stay  with  him  when  we  return.  Moreover,  dear  Colonel 
John  Hay,  with  his  beautiful  wife,  has  been  here,  and  many  more, 
and  here,  as  at  Boston,  we  have  been  seeing  all  the  best  people 


Ill    Washm^ijn.  457 

Mr.  Winthrop  was  most  agreeable,  a  friend  of  tlie  Cranwxrths, 
Bunburys,  Charles  Howard,  and  all  the  Whig  set  in  England,  and 
such  a  fine  old  gentleman.  Nothing  can  exceed  the  courtesy  and 
hospitality  everywhere.  .  .  .  On  Thursday  we  are  off  to  Phila- 
'lelphia,  then  Washington,  where  we  have  introductions  to  the 
President,  etc.,  and  then  back  here  to  these  kind  friends.  From 
I'rofessor  Botta  I  am  learning  a  lot  of  Italian  history  and  politics, 
inhich  is  most  useful. 

"  Here  the  streets  are  full  of  melting  snow.  We  had  a  huge 
snow-storm  on  Wednesday  after  dreadful  cold,  and  overhead  a  sky 
like  Italy  or  south  of  France,  and  a  sun  who  takes  care  to  remind 
us  that  we  are  in  the  latitude  of  Rome.  But  it  is  infinitely  healthy, 
at  least  to  me.  R.  looks  quite  blooming,  and  I  am  suddenly  quite 
well.  ...  1  never  want  medicine  or  tonic,  and  very  little 
stimulant.  But  one  cannot  do  as  much  here  as  at  home.  All  say 
=9  and  I  find  it.  One  can  go  faster  for  awhile  but  gets  exhausted 
sooner.  As  for  the  people  they  are  quite  charming,  and  I  long  to 
see  the  New  Englanders  again  when  the  humming  birds  and  mock- 
ing birds  get  there  and  the  country  is  less  like  Greenland.  .  .  . 
I  have  been  assisting  Bishop  Potter  at  an  ordination.  The  old 
man  was  very  cordial,  es[)ecially  when  he  found  1  was  of  the  re- 
spectful and  orthodox  class.  So  that  is  well,  but  I  will  not  preach, 
at  least  not  yet." 

'*  During  our  stay  among  our  many  friends  in  New  York,  renew- 
ing old  friendships  and  making  fresh  acquaintances,  my  father  par- 
ticularly rejoiced  at  an  opportunity  of  meeting  Mr.  William  CuUen 
Bryant,  whose  poetry  had  been  his  delight  from  his  boyhood. 
From  New  York  we  went  to  Philadelphia,  staying  there  for  two 
nights  with  Mr.  C.  J.  Peterson.  On  the  evening  of  our  arrival  my 
father  lectured  in  the  Opera  House  to  an  audience  of  nearly  4,000 
— every  seat  being  occupied,  and  the  aisles  and  steps  crowded  with 
people,  who  stood  the  whole  time.  Here,  as  in  New  York  and 
lioston,  we  were  overwhelmed  with  kindness,  our  hosts  and  other 
fiiends  gathering  together  at  their  houses  everyone  in  the  city 
•A  hose  acquaintance  was  most  likely  to  give  us  pleasure. 

"  On  the  7th  of  March  we  went  or  to  Washington,  where  Pre:  i- 
dent  Grant  welcomed  my  father  most  cordially.  The  icth  we 
spent  among  the  scientific  men  of  Washington,  Dr.  Henry  at  the 
Smithsonian  Institute,  and  Professor  Hayden  at  the  office  of  the 
(}eological  Survey  of  the  Territories.  In  the  latter  my  father  took 
a  keen  interest,  and  was  struck  by  the  admirable  work  displayed  in 
the  geological  maps  and  photographs  made  by  the  surveying  paitiK^j 


458  Charles  Kings  ley, 

in  the  field  in  Colorado,  Nebraska,  Utah,  and  ^V^3oming  during  the 
summer  month  5,  which  are  worked  up  at  Washington  during  the 
winter. 

"  We  also  went  to  the  Senate  House  though  rather  weary  with 
continual  sightseeing  :  but  my  father  often  said  afterwards  that  he 
would  not  have  missed  that  visit  for  any  consideration,  for  in  the 
Senate  he  was  introduced  to  Mr.  Charles  Sumner.  They  had  cor- 
responded a  good  deal  in  former  years,  though  personally  unac- 
quainted, and  for  some  time  the  correspondence  had  ceased  owing 
to  the  different  views  they  had  held  on  some  American  matters. 
But  the  moment  tlie  two  came  face  to  face  all  mistrust  vanished,  as 
each  instinctively  recognized  the  manly  honesty  of  the  other,  and 
they  had  a  long  and  friendly  talk.  An  hour  after,  Mr.  Sumner  was 
seized  with  an  attack  of  Angina  Pectoris,  from  which  he  had  long 
suffered,  and  when  we  readied  iVew  York  the  next  day  we  were 
shocked  to  find  that  the  news  of  his  death  had  preceded  us  by 
telegraph." 

Washington,  March  8. 

'* .  .  .  .  We  are  received  with  open  arms,  and  heaped  with 
hospitality.  1  hardly  like  to  talk  of  it.  and  of  our  reception  by 
Mr.  Childs  and  all  Philatlelphia.  AV'e  went  just  now  and  left  our 
introductions  at  the  White  House,  and  in  walked  dear  Rothery, 
who  is  here  settling  the  International  l-'isheries  question,  and  he  13 
going  to  take  me  round  to  make  all  our  calls,  on  Fish,  and 
Dr.  Henry,  &c.,  and  then  to  dine,  and  go  with  him  to  the  White 
House  in  the  evening,  and  go  to  Baltimore  on  'i'uesday. 

"  Railway  travelling  is  very  ciieap  and  most  luxurious.  Mean- 
while we  are  promised  free  ])asses  on  the  Chicago  lines  and  also  to 
California.  1  have  not  been  so  well  for  years.  My  digestion  is 
perfect,  and  I  am  in  high  spiiits.  But  I  am  homesick  at  times, 
and  would  give  a  finger  to  be  one  hour  with  you,  and  G.,  and  M. 
liut  1  dream  of  you  all  every  night,  and  my  dreams  are  more 
pleasant  now  I  sleep  with  my  window  open  to  counteract  the 
hideous  heat  of  these  hot-air  pipes.  R.  is  very  well  and  is  the  best 
of  secretaries.     Tell  C.  I  was  delighted  with  his  letter. 

"  On  Monday  the  9th,  1  was  asked  by  the  Speaker  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  to  open  the  Session  of  the  House  with  prayer, "* 
and  I  simply  repeated  two  collecis  from  the  English  Prayer-book, 
mentioning,  as  is  the  custom,  the  President  of  tne  United  States, 

*  This  was  considered  a  most  1  nusual  distinction,  and  the  deep  solemnity  cA 
marner  and  simplicity  with  which  it  ivas  done  struck  every  one  present. 


In  New  England.  455 

the  Senate,  and  the  House  of  Re  .)resentativ(;.s,  and  ended  ivith  the 
I-ord's  Prayer." 

"  From  New  York  my  father  went  up  the  Hudson  to  Pough- 
ke(4')sie  and  Troy,  joining  me  at  Hartford  (Conn.)  on  the  14th,  to 
par  a  long-promised  visit  to  Mr.  Samuel  Clemens  (Mark  Twain). 
Kiom  Troy  to  Hartford  he  came  through  the  wooded  passes  ol 
Berkshire  County,  and  was  enthusiastic  about  the  beauty  of  the 
pine  forests,  and  rocky  trout  streams,  just  breaking  free  from  the 
winter  snow  which  was  beginning  to  melt,  comparing  it  to  the  best 
parts  of  the  Eifel  and  Black  Forest. 

"On  Monday  the  i6th,  we  returned  to  Boston  to  stay  with  my 
father's  old  friend  Mr.  James  T.  Field,  in  whose  hospitable  hous^ 
we  were  able  to  see  many  whose  acquaintance  we  had  long  wished 
to  make,  and  whose  friendship  was  a  lasting  pleasure  to  my  fathei. 
During  this  week  my  father  spent  one  night  at  New  Haven,  stay- 
ing with  his  namesake  and  distant  kinsman.  Dr.  William  Kingsley, 
of  Yale  College." 

Boston,  March  23. 

".  ...  We  are  housed  and  feasted  everywhere.  I  do  not  tire 
the  least. — Sleep  at  night,  and  rise  in  the  morning  as  fresh  as 
a  lark,  to  eat  a  great  breakfast,  my  digestion  always  in  perfect 
order,  while  my  nerve  is  like  a  bull's.  This  is  a  marvellous  cli- 
mate. The  Americans  make  themselves  ill  by  hot-air,  and  foul  air. 
and  want  of  exercise  ;  I,  who  sleep  with  my  window  open  and  get 
all  fresh  air  I  can  by  day,  am  always  well.  To-morrow  morning  we 
start  for  Montreal,  and  then  on  to  Quebec  to  good  Col.  Strange. 

"  Sumner's  death  has  been  an  awful  blow  here.  I  do  not  won- 
der, for  he  was  a  magnificent  man.  He  and  1  were  introduced  to 
each  other  in  the  Senate  an  hour  before  his  attack.  He  was  most 
cordial,  and  we  had  much  talk  about  Gladstone,  and  the  A.'s. 
His  last  words  to  me  were,  that  he  was  going  to  write  to  the 
Duchess  of  Argyle  the  next  day.  Alas  !  I  wrote  to  her  for  him,  to 
lell  her  particulars  of  the  end. 

"  Oh,  dear,  I  wish  spring  would  come,  the  winter  here  is  awful. 
The  grass  as  brown  with  frost  as  a  table.  But  the  blue-bird  and 
the  robin  (as  they  call  a  great  particolored  thrush,)  are  just  begin- 
ning to  come,  to  my  intense  delight  However,  when  we  go  north 
to-morrow  we  shall  run  into  Arctic  weather  again.  Don't  frighten 
yourself  at  our  railroads,  they  seem  utterly  safe,  and  I  believe  one 
is  far  safer,  humanly  speaking,  here  than  at  home.  As  for  the 
people,  they  are  fine,  generous,  kindly,  wholesome  folk ,  all  classes 
of  them.  Now  good-bye,  and  love  to  M.,  and  my  blessing  to 
G.     .    .     ." 


460  Charles  Kingsley. 

Washington,  Apiii^ 

'*  Here  we  are  safe  and  soun*,!,  having  run  500  miles  in  tliirtj 
hoin^s  to  Baltimore,  from  the  delightful  Dufferins.  .  .  .  The 
long  journeys  do  not  in  the  least  tire  me,  so  have  no  fears  for  me 
The  safety  of  these  rails  is  wonderful,  as  is  their  comfort.  We  have 
come  out  of  intense  winter  into  damp  spring.  The  birds  (such  beau- 
ties) are  coming  fast  from  the  Bahamas  and  Floridas ;  the  maples 
ire  in  crimson  clouds  of  little  flowers ;  the  flowers  are  coming  out 
in  the  gardens.  I  have  seen  two  wasps  like  West  India  ones,  an 
inch  and  a  half  long,  and  heard  a  tree  toad,  and  am  warm  once 
more.  All  goes  well.  We  have  a  dinner-party  to-night ;  we  are 
staying  with  Senator  Potter,  and  to-morrow  a  dinner-party  with  the 
President.  So  we  shall  have  seen  quasi-royalty,  British  and  Ameri- 
can both  in  one  week.  .  .  .  Thank  God  for  our  English  letters.  I 
cannot  but  hope  that  there  is  a  time  of  rest  and  refreshing  for  U9 
after  I  return.  .  .  .  To  me  the  absence  of  labor  and  anxiety  is 
most  healthy.  I  am  quite  idle  now  for  days  together,  and  the  rail 
itself  is  most  pleasant  idleness." 

"  At  Baltimore  my  father  yielded  to  the  entreaties  of  the  friend? 
with  whom  we  were  staying,  and  preached  on  the  12th  in  the  princi- 
pal church  of  Baltimore  to  a  large  congregation.  On  Easter  day  he 
had  preached  in  the  little  church  close  to  Rideau,  for  the  first  time 
since  he  landed  in  America,  on  '  The  Peace  of  God.'  On  the  20th 
of  April,  we  left  New  York  to  begin  working  our  way  slowly  west 
ward,  so  as  to  be  at  Omaha  early  in  May  to  meet  a  large  party  of 
friends  who  had  invited  us  to  join  them  in  a  trip  to  California. 
Our  first  halting  place  was  Ithaca  (Cornell  University),  which  we 
should  have  reached  on  the  evening  of  the  20th,  but  on  the  Erie 
railroad  we  were  stopped  for  six  hours  by  a  huge  rock  falling  on  the 
track  as  a  coal  train  was  coming  towards  us,  round  sharp  curves, 
and  we  should  have  had  a  frightful  accident  but  for  the  presence  of 
inind  of  the  engineer,  as  his  engine  ran  over  the  rock,  jamming  itself 
and  the  tender  across  both  lines  of  rail ;  he  being  unhurt,  and  remem 
bering  our  train  was  due  at  that  moment,  ran  down  the  line  seeing  us 
c:;ming,  and  we  pulled  up  within  100  yards  of  the  disaster.  It  hap- 
pened in  the  midst  of  the  finest  scenery  on  the  Delaware,  above  Port 
Jervis,  where  the  railway  follows  the  windings  of  the  river,  and  is  in 
many  places  blasted  out  of  the  cliffs.  And  as  there  was  no  possi- 
bility of  getting  on  till  the  disabled  train  and  broken  trucks  were 
removed,  my  father  and  I  spent  the  hours  of  waiting  in  wandering 
about  the  rocky  woods  above  the  railway,  botanizing  and  geologizing 


At  Niagara.  461 

**  On  Tuesday  we  reached  Ithaca,  and  went  on  the  next  day  to 
Niagara.  After  one  night  at  Niagara  we  went  on  the  23rd  (St 
George's  day)  forty  miles  to  Hamilton  (Ontario),  where  my  father 
had  an  enthusiastic  reception  at  his  lecture.     After  lecturing  he 

went  to  the  dinner  of  the  St.  George's  Society We 

lelurned  next  day  to  Niagara,  staying  at  Clark's  Hill  with  an  old 
English  friend,  with  whom  we  spent  the  r  ext  three  days,  my  father 
preaching  on  Sunday,  the  26th,  in  the  moining,  at  Clifton,  and  in  tl  ? 
afternoon  at  Chippewa.  He  thoroughly  enjoyed  being  once  more 
in  the  country,  and  the  walks  on  country  roads,  after  three  months 
of  cities  and  pavements.  The  spring  birds  were  just  beginning  to 
make  their  appearance,  and  the  spring  flowers  to  try  and  push  theii 
leaves  through  the  melting  snt  ,v.  On  the  27th  we  went  on  to 
Toronto  for  one  night,  and  on  the  28th  we  finally  bade  farewell  to 
Canada,  and  set  our  faces  westward,  reaching  Detroit  (Mich.)  late 
that  night. 

"At  Detroit,  where  we  stayed  three  days  with  the  rector  of  one 
of  the  Episcopal  churches,  the  weather  was  still  bitter,  and  my  father 
could  not  shake  ofif  a  cold  which  he  had  caught  at  Niagara.  But  as  we 
neared  St.  Louis,  on  the  afternoon  of  the  2nd  of  May,  after  a  railway 
journey  of  twenty  hours,  we  began  to  be  warm  once  more,  and 
realize  what  spring  time  in  the  West  really  was.  All  the  fruit  trees 
were  in  blossom  ;  the  ground  on  either  side  of  the  railway,  where 
any  was  left  untilled,  was  carpeted  with  beautiful  flowers  utterly 
unknown  to  us,  and  the  air  was  mild  and  balmy." 

Niagara,  April  21. 

**  At  last  we  are  here,  safe  and  well,  thank  God,  in  the  most 
glorious  air,  filled  with  the  soft  thunder  of  this  lovely  phantom,  foi 
such,  and  not  stupendous,  it  seems  a?  yet  to  me.  I  know  it  could 
and  would  destroy  me  pitilessly,  likt  other  lovely  phantoms,  but  I 
do  not  feel  awed  by  it.  After  all,  it  is  not  a  quarter  of  the  size  of 
an  average  thunderstorm,  and  the  continuous  roar,  and  steauy 
flow,  makes  it  less  terrible  than  either  a  thunderstorm  or  a  real 
Atlantic  surf.  But  I  long  for  you  to  sit  with  me,  and  simply  look 
on  in  silence  whole  days  at  the  exquisite  beauty  of  form  and 
color.     .     .     . 

"  After  a  delightful  time  in  the  Prince's  old  quarters  at  Hamilton, 
we  are  here  again  in  another  old  quarter  of  his,  the  loveliest  house 
bi  the  loveliest  grounds,  and  as  I  write  the  whole  rai)ids  of  Niagara 


462  Charles  Kingsley. 

roaring  past  100  yards  off,  between  the  huge  arbor  vitas,  forty  fee 
high,  hke  a  tremendous  grey  Atlantic  surf  rushing  down-hill  ir.steaC 
of  up.  I  could  not  describe  the  beauty  of  this  place  in  a  week.  1 
can  see  the  smoke  of  the  horse-shoe  through  a  vista  on  my  left,  not 
half  a  mile  off  as  I  sit  (sketch  enclosed).  We  are  above,  under- 
stand, and  the  river  is  running  from  right  to  left.  To-day  we  are 
going  to  Des  Veaux  College  to  see  the  lower  rapids." 

St.  Louis,  May  4 . 

"  At  St  Louis  safe  and  well,  thank  God,  in  the  capital  of  the 
West,  and  across  the  huge  rushing  muddy  ditch,  the  Mississippi. 
Having  come  here  over  vast  praiiies,  mostly  tilled,  hundreds  of 
miles  like  the  Norfolk  fens,  without  the  ditches,  a  fat,  dreary,  aguish, 
brutalizing  land,  but  with  a  fine  strong  people  in  it,  and  here  is  a 
city  of  470,000  souls  growing  rapidly.  It  is  all  very  wonderful,  and 
like  a  dream.  But  there  is  material  civilization  and  comfort  every- 
where (except  at  the  stations  where  the  food  is  bad),  and  all  goes 
w^ll.  Only  I  wish  already  that  our  heads  were  homeward,  and 
that  we  had  done  the  great  tour,  and  had  it  not  to  do.  However, 
we  shall  go  west  in  comfort.  The  Cyrus  Fields,  the  Grays,  and 
probably  the  dear  Rotherys,  will  make  up  a  good  party.  And  I 
cannot  but  feel  that  I  have  gained  much  if  only  in  the  vast  experi- 
ence of  new  people  and  new  facts.  I  shall  come  home  1  hope  a 
wider-hearted  and  wider-headed  man  ;  and  have  time,  I  trust,  to  read 
and  think  as  I  have  not  done  for  many  years.  At  least  so  runs  my 
dream.  We  had  a  glorious  thunderstorm  last  night  after  I  had 
helped  at  the  communion  in  the  morning,  and  preached  in  the 
afternoon  for  good  Mr.  Schuyler 

"We  start  to-morrow  for  California,  after  receiving  here  every 
civility.  The  heat  is  tremendous,  all  of  a  sudden,  but  it  will  be 
cooler  as  we  rise  the  prairies  out  of  the  Mississippi  Valle)^  We 
have  free  passes  here  to  Kansas  City,  and  the  directors  offered  to 
take  us  on  with  them  to  Denver.  We  shall  also  have  free  passes 
to  California  and  back  from  Omaha — a  great  gain." 

'*We  stayed  for  a  week  in  St.  Louis,  where  the  hot  weather 
came  on  so  suddenly  and  fiercely  that  we  were  both  made  quite  ill 
by  it,  and  were  thankful  on  Saturday,  the  9th  of  May,  to  leave  the 
city  on  our  way  tj  Omaha,  where  we  were  to  join  our  friends  fiom 
New  York. 

"  The  journey  was  intensely  hot.  A  perfect  sirocco  blowing 
away  everything  in  the  cars  if  the  windows  were  opened ;  but  the 
country  was  so  lovely  as  almost  to  make  amends  for  our  discomfoit. 
The  trees  were  bursting  into  a  tender  green  ;  the  woods  were  her< 


A£  Sail  Lake   Cily.  463 

mowy  with  the  pure  white  dogwood  and  wild  plum  blossoms,  there, 
purple  pink  with  the  Judas  tree,  and  down  below  grew  countlesj 
wild  flowers,  making  us  long  every  moment  that  it  were  possible  to 
atop  the  train  and  gather  them. 

"  We  reached  Omaha  on  Sunday  morning,  the  loth,  and  had 
hardly  been  there  an  hour  before  we  felt  the  renovating  effec  t  of 
the  glorious  air  rushing  down,  down,  in  a  gale  500  miles  from  iht 
Rocky  Mountains,  to  cool  and  refresh  the  panting  Missouri  Valley  , 
and  we  were  able  once  more  to  eat  and  sleep,  which  in  the  heat  c  f 
the  last  three  days  at  St.  Louis  had  become  impossible." 

Omaha,  May  ii, 

"  And  we  are  at  Omaha  !  a  city  of  20,000,  five  years  old,  made 
Dy  the  railway,  and  opposite  to  us  is  Council  Bluffs  !  !  Thirty 
years  ago  the  palavering  ground  of  trappers  and  Indians  (now  all 
gone),  and  to  that  very  spot,  which  I  had  known  of  from  a  boy, 
and  all  about  it,  I  meant  to  go  in  despair  ....  as  soon  a< 
I  took  my  degree,  and  throw  myself  into  the  wild  life,  to  sink  or 
swim,  escaping  from  a  civilization  which  only  tempted  me  and 
maddened  me  with  the  envy  of  a  poor  man  !  Oh  !  how  good  God 
has  been  to  me.  Oh  !  how  when  I  saw  those  Bluffs  yesterday 
morning  I  thanked  God  for  you — for  everything,  and  stared  at 
them  till  I  cried " 

"On  the  14th  the  party  of  friends  we  were  awaiting  arrived  al 
Omaha,  and  on  the  following  day  we  left  with  them  for  the  firsi 
stage  of  the  Californian  journey.  Mr.  Cyrus  Field  and  Mr.  J.  A. 
C.  Gray,  of  New  York,  were  the  organizers  of  the  expedition,  and 
with  them,  besides  several  of  their  own  relations  and  friends,  were 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  H.  C.  Rothery,  making  a  party  of  eleven  Americans 
and  five  English,  which  quite  filled,  but  did  not  crowd,  the  nnicjnifi- 
cent  Pullman  car  which  was  our  home  for  the  next  fortnight. 

"Our  first  halt  was  at  Salt  Lake  City,  where  we  anivtHl  on 
Fiiday,  the  15th  May,  one  day  too  late,  unfortunately,  fur  mj 
father  to  take  part  in  the  consecration  of  St.  Mark's,  llic  t:;st 
Episcopal  church  which  has  been  built  in  Utah.  On  Sunday,  the 
17th,  however,  he  preached  the  evening  sermon  at  the  church,  to 
such  a  crowded  congregation  that  there  was  not  standing  room  in 
the  little  building,  and  numbers  had  to  go  away.  The  steps  out- 
side, and  even  the  pavement,  being  crowded  with  listeners,  among 
whom  w(-re  many  Mormons  as  well  as  '  Gentiles.'      Brigham  Young 


464  Charles  Kings  ley. 

sent  to  offer  my  father  the  tabernacle  to  lecture  or  preath  in,  liuf 
of  this  offer  he  of  course  took  no  notice  whatever,  a  course  strong!) 
approved  by  the  excellent  Bishop,  Dr.  Tuttle. 

"  On  Monday,  the  i8th,  we  left  Salt  Lake  City,  after  a  vi,it  to 
General  Moreau  at  Camp  Douglas,  the  United  States  camp,  '.)n  tl)e 
hill-side  above  the  city,  who  had  one  of  the  Gatling  guns  firod  foi 
our  amusement.  On  our  remonstrating  against  such  a  waste  of 
ammunition  he  said  that  'he  was  glad  sometimes  to  show  those  i.is 
cals  in  the  city  how  straight  his  gims  fired,  and  tliat  if  they  ga\t 
him  any  trouble  he  could  blow  the  city  to  pieces  in  an  hour.' " 

Walker  House,  Salt  Lake  City,  Utah,  May  17, 
"  Here  we  are  after  such  a  journey  of  luxury—  through  a  thou 
sand  miles  of  desert,  ])lain,  and  mountain,  treeless,  waterless 
almost,  sage  brush  and  alkali.  Then  canons  and  gorges,  the  last 
just  like  Llanberris  Pass,  into  this  enormous  green  plain,  with  its 
great  salt  lake  ;  and  such  a  mountain  ring,  300  to  400  miles  in  cir- 
cumference !  The  loveliest  scene  1  ever  saw.  As  I  sit,  the  snow- 
peaks  of  the  Wasatch  tower  above  the  opposite  houses  five  miles 
off,  while  the  heat  is  utterly  tropical  in  the  streets.  Yesterday  we 
were  running  through  great  snowdrifts,  at  from  5,000  to  7.000  feet 
above  tiie  sea  {we  are  5,000  here)  and  all  along  by  our  side  the  old 
trail,  where  every  mile  is  fat  with  Mormon  bones.  Sadness  and 
astonishment  overpower  me  at  it  all.  The  'city'  is  thriving 
enough,  putting  one  in  mind,  with  its  swift  streams  in  all  streets, 
and  mountain  background,  of  Tarbes,  or  some  other  Pyrenean 
town.  But,  ah  !  Avhat  horrors  this  jjlace  has  seen.  Thank  God  it 
is  all  breaking  up  fast.  The  tyrant  is  70,  and  must  soon  go  to  his 
account,  and  what  an  awful  one.  I  am  deeply  interested  in  the 
good  bishop  here,  and  his  mission  among  the  poor  little  children, 
whose  parents  are  principally  Cornish,  Worcestershire,  and  South 
Welsh  ;  and  if  I  can  do  aught  for  him  when  I  come  home,  I  will 
do  it  with  a  will.  Meanwhile  our  kind  hosts  insist  on  R.  and  me 
being  their  guests  right  through,  and  let  us  pay  for  nothing.  It  is 
an  enormous  helj),  for  they  control  both  railways  and  telegraphs, 
and  do  and  go  exactly  as  they  like.  The  gentlemen  and  R.  are 
gone  down  to-day  to  see  a  silver  mine,  by  special  engine,  and  she 
and  Rothery  (F.L.S.)  are  going  to  botanize.  The  flowers  are  e<. 
quisite,  yellow  ribes  over  all  the  cliffs,  &:c.,  and  make  one  long  to 
jumj)  off  the  train  every  five  minutes.  While  the  geology  makt;fi 
me  stand  aghast;  geologizirg  in  England  is  child's  play  to  this 
R.  is  quite  well,  and  the  life  of  everything,  and  I  am  all  right,  but 
don't  like  a  dry  air  at  95°,  with  a  sirocco. 

"  Interrupted  by  a  most  interesting  and  painful  talk  with  a  man 
who  has  been  United  States  Governor  heie.      It  is  all  very  dread 


Off  for  the   Yosentite.  465 

hil.  Thank  God  we  (in  England)  at  least  knc»\.'  what  love  and 
purity  is.  1  preach  tomorrow  evening,  and  the  Bishop  of  Colorado 
in  the  morning." 

"  On  the  2oth  our  car  was  slipped  during  the  night  at  Reno,  and 
when  we  woke  at  5  a.m.,  we  found  ourselves  on  a  branch  line  at 
Carson  City.  After  breakfast,  with  Californian  strawberries  heaped 
ow  dishes  on  every  table,  we  left  our  car  for  a  special  train,  the 
I'ullman  being  too  long  for  the  sharp  curves  of  the  railroad,  anc 
with  Mr.  D.  O.  Mills,  of  San  Francisco,  who  had  joined  our  train  in 
his  directors'  car,  the  day  before,  at  Ogden,  we  went  up  to  Virginia 
city,  and  spent  the  day  among  silver  mines  and  stamp  mills,  and 
dust,  and  drought,  my  dear  father  finding,  even  in  the  out  of  the 
way  spot,  a  warm  and  hearty  welcome  from  many.  We  returned 
to  Carson  in  the  afternoon,  and  were  picked  up  in  the  night  by  the 
Western  train  at  Reno,  breakfasting  at  Summit,  on  the  top  of  the 
Sierra  Nevada  next  morning,  and  arrived  at  Sacramento  at  midday 
on  the  2 1  St. 

"  My  father  was  delighted  at  finding  himself  once  more  in  almost 
tropical  heat,  and  spent  all  the  afternoon  driving  with  our  friends 
about  the  city,  and  revelling  in  the  gorgeous  subtropical  flowers 
which  hung  over  every  garden  fence.  In  the  evening  he  lectured 
to  a  very  pleasant  audience,  and  that  night  we  left  Sacramento  in 
our  car,  with  a  special  engine,  for  Merced,  which  we  reached 
before  dawn, 

"Next  morning,  the  22nd,  we  were  all  up  about  four,  and  before 
starting  on  our  Yosemite  trip,  Mr.  Cyrus  Field  sent  off  a  telegram 
to  the  Dean  of  Westminster,  to  my  mother,  and  various  friends  in 
England  : — '  We  are,  with  Canon  Kingsley  and  his  daughter  and 
other  friends,  just  entering  Yosemite  Valley,  all  in  excellent  health 
and  spirits.  Mr.  Ivingsley  is  to  preach  for  us  in  Yosemite  on 
Sunday.' 

*'We  started  at  6  a.m.,  in  two  open  stages  with  five  horses,  an'' 
drove  54  miles  that  day  through  exquisite  country,  botanizing  all  the 
way  to  Skeltons,  a  ranch  in  the  forest,  and  some  of  our  party  made 
their  first  acquaintance  with  a  real  western  shanty.  On  the  23rd  we 
were  all  up  betimes,  my  father,  the  earliest  of  all,  came  up  with  his 
hands  full  of  new  and  beautiful  flowers,  after  a  chat  with  the  guides, 
who  had  driven  the  mules  and  ponies  in  from  their  grazing  grc>und, 
and  wer'=!  beginning  to  saddle  them  for  our  day's  ride.  At  6  w« 
30 


46C  Cfiarlet  Kingsley. 

started,  and  my  father  said  he  felt  a  boy  again,  and  thoroughij 
erjoyed  the  long  day  ir.  the  saddle,  which  many  of  our  friends  found 
so  tiring.  We  chose  a  new  and  unfrequented  route,  and  havnig  to 
climb  two  mountains  and  ride  along  precipices,  and  ford  four  rivers 
in  flood  in  29  miles,  we  were  not  sorry  to  reach  the  Valley  at  sun-* 
set.  But  rough  as  the  ride  was,  it  surpassed  in  beauty  anything  wo 
had  ever  seen  before,  as  we  followed  the  windings  of  the  Merced 
river  between  pine-clad  mountains,  still  white  with  snow  on  their 
highest  points,  till  we  reached  the  mouth  of  the  Valley  itself,  and, 
emerging  from  a  thicket  of  dogwood,  pines,  and  azaleas,  '  El 
Capitan,'  just  tipped  with  the  rosy  setting  sun  on  one  side,  and  the 
Bridal  Veil  Fall  rushing  in  a  white  torrent,  900  feet  high,  over  the 
gloomy  rocks,  on  the  other  side,  revealed  themselves  to  us  in  a  glow 
of  golden  rosy  light. 

"The  next  day  (Whit  Sunday)  most  of  our  party  rested  from 
their  fatigues,  and  we  walked  about  and  feasted  our  eyes  on  the 
almost  overpowering  scene  around  us,  which  seemed,  if  possible,  to 
increase  in  beauty  in  every  fresh  phase  of  light  or  shade,  sunlight 
or  moonlight.  At  5  p.m.  the  visitors  of  both  hotels  assembled  in 
the  little  parlor  at  Black's,  and  my  fat'her  gave  a  short  service,  aftei 
which  we  sang  the  looth  Psalm,  and  he  preached  a  short  sermon 
on  verses  10-14,  16-18  of  the  104th  Psalm,  which  happily  was  the 
Fsalm  for  the  day.* 

*  In  his  sermon,  in  Westminster  Abbey,  on  Whit-Sunday,  the  Dean  of  West 
minster  referred  to  Mr.  Field's  telegram.  His  text,  too,  was  on  Psalm  civ.,  2, 
14,  15,  24  :  "  On  this  very  day,"  he  says,  "  (so  I  learnt  yesterday  by  that  elec- 
tric flash  which  unites  the  old  dna  new  worlds  together),  a  gifted  member  of  tliis 
Collegiate  Church,  whose  discourses  on  this  and  like  Psalms  have  rivetted  the 
altsntion  of  vast  congregations  in  this  Abbey,  and  who  is  able  to  combine  the 
religious  and  scientific  aspects  of  Nature  better  than  any  man  living,  is  on  this 
very  day,  and  perhaps  at  this  very  hour,  preaching  in  the  most  beautiful  spot  ou 
the  face  of  the  earth,  where  the  glories  of  Nature  are  revealed  on  the  most  gigan 
tic  scale — in  that  wonderful  Californian  Valley,  to  whose  trees,  the  cedars  of  Lebii- 
•i.iii  are  but  as  the  hyssop  that  groweth  out  of  the  wall — where  water  and  forest 
jinii  sky  conjoin  to  make  up,  if  anywhere  on  this  globe,  an  earthly  paradise.  Let 
me,  from  this  pulpit,  faintly  echo  the  enthusiasm  which  I  doubt  not  inspires  hit 
burning  words.  Let  us  feel  that  in  this  splendid  Psalm  and  this  splendid  festival, 
the  old  and  the  new,  the  east  anvi  the  west,  are  indeed  united  in  one." 

"On  May  26th  Mrs.  Kingsley  received  the  following  telegraphic  message  from 
Mr.  Cyrus  Field,  through  the  Secretary  of  the  Anglo-American  Telegiaph  Cora 
;)any  :   "  Yosemite  Valley,   California,   Sunoay,   May  24th.—  We  arrived  her* 


Mafiposa   Grove.  l6; 

*  On  Monday  we  spent  the  day  in  riding  all  over  the  Valley, 
ind  on  Tuesday,  26th,  we  left  it  at  6  a.m.,  and  rode  24  miles  to 
Clark's  Ranch,  neai  the  Mariposa  Grove.  It  was  bitterly  cold, 
for  the  snow  had  not  melted  on  some  of  the  high  passes,  which 
were  7,000  feet  above  the  sea:  but  we  found  blazing  fires  and  a 
good  supper  at  Clark's,  and  after  a  good  night  rode  out  six  miks 
the  next  day  to  the  Mariposa  Grove  of  Sequoias  (Wellingtonias). 
My  father  and  I  agreed  to  see  the  first  one  together,  and  riding  o)i 
aht.-ad  of  our  party  a  little,  we  suddenly  came  upon  the  first,  a  huge 
cinnamon-red  stem  standing  up  pillar-like,  with  its  head  of  delicali 
green  foliage  among  the  black  sugar  pines  and  Douglas  spruce, 
and  I  shall  never  forget  the  emotion  with  which  he  gazed  silently 
— and  as  he  said  '  awe  struck  ' — on  this  glorious  work  of  God. 

'*  It  was  very  cold,  and  we  rode  over  snow  for  some  two  niik-^ 
under  the  '  big  trees,'  and  were  glad  to  camp  in  Mr.  Clark's  litttle 
empty  shanty  under  a  group  of  some  of  the  largest  of  the  sequoias. 
Mr.  Clark,  who  is  the  guardian  of  the  Grove,  had  come  with  us  aa 
well  as  our  own  guide,  Jim  Cathy,  and  they  soon  lighted  a  roaring 
fire,  and  seated  on  a  bed  of  fragrant  hemlock  twigs,  we  warmed 
ourselves  and  ate  our  luncheon  of  bread  and  meat  and  excellent 
i^eer,  and  then  rode  on  and  back  to  the  Ranch,  with  a  collection 
of  flowers  that  took  our  whole  evenmg  to  dry.  Next  day,  tin; 
28th,  we  drove  down  to  Merced,  65  miles,  and  there  joined  the 
railroad  again,  and  left  on  the  29th  at  dawn,  arriving  that  afternoon 
\w  San  Francisco." 

San  Francisco,  Mny  31. 

"  Here  we  are  safe  after  such  adventures  and  such  wonders  in 
the  Yosemite  and  the  Big  Trees,  and  found   the   dear   EngHsh  let 

ters  waiting  for  us Tell  G.  I  will  write  to  him  all  aboui 

the  sea  lions  which  I  saw  this  morning.  All  is  more  beautiful  ai'd 
wonderful  than  I  expected,  and  California  the  finest  country  in  tl  '. 
world — and  oh  !  the  flowers." 

*'  The  next  letter  you  get  from  me  will,  I  hope,  be  from  Denver 
We  start  east  to-morrow,  thank  God,  and  run  the  Sierras,  and  the 
desert  ba.^k  again,  and  beautiful  as  California  is,  I  think  destined 


safely  Saturday  evening,  all  delighted  with  the  magn'.ficeiit  scenery.  Canon 
Kingsley  preached  in  the  Valley  this  Sunday  afternoon.  We  leave  here  Tuesday 
for  the  bi^  Trees.  Arrive  in  San  Francisco,  Friday,  Re  naiii  there  till  ih; 
foUov/ing  \\'eihiesdi.y. " 


^68  Charles  Kings  ley. 

to  be  the  finest  country  in  the  world,  I  want  to  be  rearer  an<i 
nearer  home.  We  have  been  so  heaped  with  kindness  that  this 
trip  will  cost  us  almost  nothing.  1  have  got  cones  from  the  big 
trees,  with  seeds  in  them,  for  l.ord  Eversley  and  Sir  Cliarles  Bun- 
bury  ;  and  we  have  collected  lieaps  of  most  exquisite  plants.  1 
think  we  shall  bring  home  many  pretty  and  curious  things." 

"  We  stayed  in  San  Francisco  about  ten  days,  my  father  making 
excursions  to  different  places  in  the  neighborhood.  The  most 
notable  of  these  was  to  the  Berkeley  University  at  Oakland, 
whither  he  was  invited  by  the  president,  Mr.  D.  C.  Oilman.  This 
day  he  most  thoroughly  enjoyed;  and  he  made  an  address  to  the 
students  full  of  vigor  and  enthusiasm,  on  Culture,  a  subject  always 
very  near  to  his  heart. 

"  During  the  last  few  days  of  my  father's  stay  in  San  Francisco, 
he  caught  a  severe  cold  from  the  damp  sea  fog  which  makes  the 
city  and  parts  of  the  coast  of  California  extremely  unhealthy,  while 
a  few  miles  inland  the  climate  is  the  finest  in  the  world.  Tnis 
cold  became  rapidly  worse,  and  the  doctors  in  San  Francisco  or- 
dered him  to  leave  the  city  as  quickly  as  possible ;  so  on  Wednes- 
day, June  lo,  we  set  off  eastward  once  more,  with  Mr.  J.  A.  C. 
Oray,  and  part  of  our  original  party ;  and  after  a  very  trying 
journey  of  four  days,  we  reached  Denver.  Here  most  providen- 
tially my  father  met  his  brother.  Dr.  Kingsley,  who  found  that  he 
was  suffering  from  a  severe  attack  of  pleurisy,  and  advised  our 
going  south  on  the  next  day,  75  miles,  to  Colorado  Springs,  by  the 
narrow  gauge  railway,  which  my  brother  had  helped  to  build  four 
years  before.  Here  Dr.  and  Mrs.  W.  A.  Bell  received  us,  and 
nursed  my  father  with  the  most  devoted  attention  in  their  charm- 
ing English  house,  at  the  foot  of  Pike's  Peak. 

"As  soon  as  my  father  had  recovered  sufficiently  to  be  moved, 
we  all  drove  up  twenty-two  miles  to  Bergun's  Park  for  change  cl 
air,  and  stayed  at  Mr.  Cholmondely  Thornton's  Ranch,  for  a  week. 
My  father's  chief  amusement  during  these  weeks  of  illness  waa 
botany,  and  though  he  was  not  able  to  get  many  specimens  himself, 
he  took  a  keen  delight  in  naming  those  we  brought  him  in  eveiy 
da>. 

*'  On  Sunday,  the  5th  July,  he  had  recovered  enough  to  be  ab»t 
to  read  a  short  service  in  the  large  c'ining-room  of  the  Ranch,  and 
be  often  reverted  to  that  service  with  pleasure  and  emotioi ». 


In   Colorado.,  469 

**  On  the  6th  we  went  down  again  to  Manitoa,  and  spent  a  few 
days  with  General  and  Mrs.  Pahner,  at  Glen  Eyrie,  whose  care 
and  kindness  helped  on  his  recovery  ;  and  on  the  following  Sunday, 
Jnly  12,  my  father  preached  in  the  Episcopal  Church  at  Coloiado 
Springs,  which  was  barely  finished,  and  in  which  only  one  service 
had  been  held.  The  church  was  crowded,  many  men,  young  Eng 
lishmen  chiefly,  having  ridden  in  twenty  miles  and  more  from  dis 
tant  Ranches  to  hear  my  father  preach.  The  next  week,  before 
leaving  Colorado  Springs  for  the  homeward  journey,  he  gave  a 
lecture  in  Colorado  Springs  for  the  benefit  of  the  church,  where  he 
also  had  a  crowd  to  listen  to  him.  The  place  was  very  dear  to 
him  from  the  fact  of  my  brother  having  been  one  of  the  first 
pioneers  there." 

Manitou,  Colorado,  June  i8. 

"  We  are  here  in  perfect  peace,  at  last,  after  the  running  and 
raging  of  the  last  tliree  weeks,  and  safe  back  over  those  horrid 
deserts,  in  a  lovely  glen,  with  red  rocks,  running  and  tinkling  burn, 
whispering  cotton  woods,  and  all  that  is  delicious,  with  Pike's  Peak 
and  his  snow  seemingly  in  the  back  garden,  but  8,000  feet  over  our 
heads.  Oh,  it  is  a  delicious  place,  and  the  more  so,  because  we 
have  just  got  a  telegram  from  Maurice,  to  say  he  and  his  wife  are 
safe  in  New  York  from  Mexico.  Thank  God  !  The  heat  is  tre- 
mendous, but  not  unwholesome.  God's  goodness  since  I  have  been 
out,  no  tongue  can  tell.  .  .  .  Please  God  I  shall  get  safe  and 
well  home,  and  never  leave  you  again,  but  settle  down  into  the 
quietest  old  theologian,  serving  God,  I  hope,  and  doing  nothing 
else,  iri  humility  and  peace." 

yune  29. 

"  A  delightful  party  has  clustered  here,  not  only  the  Rotherys, 
but  Dudley  Fortescue  and  Lord  Ebrington,  who  has  just  got  his 
Trinity  scholarship,  and  is  a  charming  lad  ;  and  we  all  go  up  to 
Bell's  Ranch  in  Bergun's  Park  to-morrow,  for  a  few  days,  to  get 
cool.)  for  the  heat  here  is  tropic,  and  we  cannot  move  by  day.  That 
has  given  nie  rest  though,  and  a  time  for  reading.  God  has  been 
so  gracious  that  I  cannot  think  that  He  means  to  send  my  gre^ 
hairs  down  in  sorrow  to  the  grave,  but  will,  perhaps,  give  me  time 
to  reconsider  myself,  and  sit  quietly  with  you,  preaching  and  work- 
ing, and  writing  no  more.  Oh  !  how  I  pray  for  that.  Tell  the 
Dean  I  have  been  thinking  much  of  him  as  I  read  Arnold's  life  and 
letters.  Ah,  happy  and  noble  man ;  happy  life,  and  happy  death. 
But  I  must  live,  please  God,  a  little  longer,  for  all  yrur  sakes. 
Love  to  G.  and  M." 


<\70  Charles  Kings  ley. 

IJeroun's  Park,  July  a. 

"Ol/,  my  Love  Your  I)ir(liilay-IcUcr  w;is  such  a  conifoil  to  iiic, 
for  1  an  very  honic-sick,  and  counting  tlie  days  till  1  can  got  back 
lo  you.  Ah,  few  and  evil  would  have  been  the  days  of  niy  pilgrim 
age  had  1  not  met  you  ;  nnd  now  1  do  look  forward  to  something 
like  a  |)eaceful  old  age  with  you.  .  .  'I'ell  John  Alartineau  hi" 
letter  was  a  great  comfort  to  n)e.  'J'iiis  place  is  like  an  ugly  High 
land  slrath,  bt)rdered  with  pine  wooc's.  Air  almost  too  fine  tc 
breathe,  7,200  feet  high.  Pike's  Peak  7,000  feet  more  at  one  end, 
lifleen  miles  off  ;  and,  alas  1  a  great  forest-l'ire  burning  for  three  days 
between  us  and  it  ;  and  at  tiie  other  end  wonderful  ragged  i)eaks, 
ten  lo  twenty  miles  off.  Flciwers  most  lovely  and  wonderful. 
rienly  of  the  dear  connnon  hare-bell,  and  several  Scotch  and  iMig- 
lish  i)hints,  mixed  with  the  strangest  form.s.  We  are  (or  rather 
Rose  is)  mnking  a  splendid  collection.  She  and  the  local  botanist 
L;ot  more  than  lifty  new  sorts  one  morning.  Her  strength  and  ac 
livily  and  happiness  are  wontlerful  ;  and  M.'s  h'tters  make  me  ver\ 
hai)py.  Yes;  1  have  nuich  lo  thank  (lod  for,  and  will  try  and 
show  my  thankhdness  by  deeds.  J,ove  lo  (i.  Tell  him  there  are 
lots  of  liout  here  ;   but  it  is  too  hot  to  catch  ihem." 

Glkn  KviiiK,  July  II. 

"Thank  Ood  our  time  draws  nigh.      I  preacli  at  C'olorado  Springs 
to-morrow,  and  lecture  for  the  Church  on   Wetlnesday  ;  *   Denver, 


""Canon  Kinosi.ey   ano    a    Ih.K.ri.K. — (P'rom   a  Denver   letter.) — I   wilJ 

icIaU-  a  link-  aiiciilolc  dT  Canon  Kiiij;slo)',  wliirli  I    lu'anl  al  Coloiiulo  Springs, 
tlic    oilier   (lay.      On    a   icciiit    I'vc-uin;^  lie  rcail   liis  Iccluic  011    "  Westminster 
Al>lii'y  "  to  llio  pcoiilc  oi    Coloraiio  Spiinj^s,  ri^lil   iiiulcr  llic  sIkuIow  of  I'ike's 
I'eak,      In  tlic  midst  of  liis  Ji-iture  a  biij^  of  some  s|icc'ics  of  Coli-opUra,  new  and 
stiange  to  tlic  eminent   Iciimci',  iili^'lile.l  on   his  manusciipt   and  attracted  liis 
attention  al  once.      Mr.  liiifj;  .sat  still  a  moment  or  two,  (luring  which  space  the 
BpeaUcr  "improved  the  occasion"  to  study  his  pcculiarilics  of  foim  and  struct- 
ure— jicrliajis  dclenninin^j  in  his  mind  certain  obscure  or  doubtful  (juestions  ;   but 
while  these  investigations  were  in  progress,  and  his  language  rolling  right  along 
to  the  delight  of  his  hearer.s,  the  insect  began  to  espaiid  his  wings  as  if  aiixion 
to  lly  away.      The  reveiend  speaker  saw  the  motion,  and  defily  caught  it  in  hi 
hand       (loinjf  right  on  with  his  line  of  arguinenl,  he  cont  i  ued  his  examination 
Km  several  moments,  until,  having  settled  everything  lo  his  own  satisfaction,  he 
let  it  buzz  away  about  its  own  busmess — jicrhajis  menially  re|Hating  the  parting 
iiijunclion  of  "  My  Uncle  Toby  "  to  the  lly.     To  any  ordinaiy  man  the  presence 
of  such  an  inl ruder  would  have  been  unwelcome,  anil  he  would  have  been  brushed 
aside,  but  the  great  Knglish  divine,  trained  to  such  cK)se  habits  of  observatiou 
and  thought,  couhl  not  forego  the  opportunity,  even  in  the  midst  of  his  lecture 
to  study  the  points  in  a  new  species  of  beetle,  his  mental  discipline  (  v.  U\v  g  hia 
to  carry  along  in  his  mind  two  '.rains  of  ideas  at  the  sime  time. 


Lorraine,  a  Ballad.  471 

I'riday,  and  tlu-ii  ri^ht  away  to  Now  York,  ;iiul  rnih.iik  on  ihc  25tK 
Letters  troni  M.,  who  has  |;one  to   Tenncssei". 

"This  is  a  wondeiftil  spot  :  such  crags,  pillars,  cavt'S-  -n  :1  an  I 
gn^v — ;t  perfect  tiling  in  ;i  slage  scu-ne  ;  and  the;  l'"lora  snth  a 
jumble — cactus,  yucca,  jxjison  sumach,  anil  lovely  strange  lIowiTs, 
mixed  with  Douglas's  and  Men/ies'  pine,  and  catabU  pinon,  and 
those  again  with  our  own  harebells  and  roses,  and  all  sorts  of 
English  llowers.  Tell  (!.  1  havi-  seen  no  ratllesnaki-s  ;  but  ihiy 
killed  twenty-live  Iumc  a  year  or  two  ago,  and  littU;  Nat.  M.,  IwcUe 
years  old,  killed  fivy.  'I'ell  him  that  there  are  '  pMiiilcd  lail\' 
l)iitterllies,  and  white  admirals  here,  just  like  oin-  I'aiglisli,  ami  a 
locust,  which,  when  he  opcMis  his  wings,  is  exactly  like  a  while 
admiral  butterlly  1  and  with  tljem  enormous  (ropic  bulterllies,  all 
colors,  and  as  big  as  bats.  We  are  trying  to  gel  a.  homed  toad  lo 
bring  honu-  alivi'.  There  is  a  cave  i)|)posite  my  window  which 
must  have  been  lull  of  bears  once,  and  a  ri;al  eagle's  nest  close  by, 
full  of  real  young  eagles,  it  is  as  big  as  a  carldoad  of  bavins. 
Tell  (i.  thai  1  will  write  again  before  we  start  over  th<;  plains.  Oh  I 
hap|)y  day  !  " 

fil.KN  KviuK,  July  \.\. 

'*  I  cannot  believe  ihil  I  ^.hall  sei-  you  wilhin  twenly  one  da\'s  , 
and  ni'vei'  longed  s<»  for  home.  I  count  the  hours  till  1  <  an  (  ross 
the  (Ireal  Valley,  on  this  side  of  which  (lod  has  been  so  gnnd  lo 
me.  I{ut,  oh  I  for  the  fn  si  rise  of  llie  e.islei  n  hilis,  lo  make  nie  sure 
that  the  Mississippi  is  not  still  between  nu-  and  beloved  l'',versley 
1  am  so  glad  you  likt;  Westminster.  Yi;s  I  we  shall  resi  our  weaiy 
bones  tln-re  for  a  while  befoic  kind  dealh  comes,  and,  jierhaps,  see 
our  grandchildren  roun<l  us  there.*  Ah!  please  (lod  tlutt !  I 
look  forward  to  a  blessed  (juiet  autinnn,  if  (iod  so  will,  having  had 
a  change  of  scene,  which  will  last  me  my  whole  life,  and  has  taught 

me    many    things 'I'he    collection    of    plants    gr(»ws 

luagniticent " 

During  his  severe  illness  in  (Colorado,  he  composird  theso   iillCI  ; 
they  wi-re  the  last  In;  (;ver  wioh-  : 

I. 
"'Arc  you  remly  for  your  stcrpic-cliiise,  Lorniinc,  I\,(irraiiic,  I,orr6e? 

iiaruni,  iiiirtiiii,  itaniin,  Haniiii,  Hiiniiii,  liiinnn,  Hiiref 
You're  hooked  to  ride  your  cappin^j  race  lo  day  at  C'oulteiicc, 
You're  l)ookcd  to  ride  ViM<li(:(ive,  for  all  the  world  to  sec, 
To  keep  liiin  strai^jlit,  and  keep  liiin  first,  and  win  the  run  for  me. 
Uarinn,  Haruni,  &c.' 

*  His  fiist  grandchild  passed  away  at  its  birth  jusi  licfore  liu  liiiniielf  wont  into 
the  unseen  world,  and  Ivajipily  l)e  never  kni-w  ii. 


472  Ck%rles  Kingsh). 

2. 

*'  She  clasped  her  new-bom  baby,  poor  Lorraine,  Lorraine,  Lorreet 

Barum,  Barum,  &c.* 
'  I  cannot  ride  Vindictive,  as  any  man  might  see, 
And  I  will  not  ride  Vindictive,  with  this  baby  on  my  knee ; 
He's  killed  a  boy,  he's  killed  a  man,  and  why  must  he  kill  me? ' 

3- 

•"  Unless  you  ride  Vindictive,  Lorraine,  Lorraine,  Lorree, 
Unless  you  ride  Vindictive  to-day  at  Coulterlee, 
And  land  him  safe  across  the  brook,  and  win  the  blank  for  me. 
It's  you  may  keep  your  baby,  for  you'll  get  no  keep  from  me.' 

4- 

" '  That  husbands  could  be  cruel,'  said  Lorraine,  Lorraine,  Lorree, 
*  That  husbands  could  be  cruel,  I  have  known  for  seasons  tliree  ; 
But  oh  !  to  ride  Vindictive  while  a  baby  cries  for  me. 
And  be  killed  across  a  fence  at  last  for  all  the  world  to  see  ! " 

5- 
"  ST.e  mastered  young  Vindictive — Oh  !  the  gallant  lass  was  she. 
And  kept  him  straight  and  won  the  race  as  near  as  near  could  be ; 
But  he  killed  her  at  the  brook  against  a  pollard  willow  tree. 
Oh  !  he  killed  her  at  the  brook,  the  brute,  for  all  the  world  to  see. 
And  no  one  but  the  baby  cried  for  poor  Lorraine,  Lorree." 

The  American  chapter  may  be  fitly  closed  by  the  following  lettei 
from  Mr,  John  Whittier,  whose  poetry  and  whose  acquaintancCi 
made  in  Boston,  had  given  him  such  especial  pleasure. 

Bearcamp  House,  W.,  N.  H.,  8th  Mo.  30,  1876. 
•'  Dear  Friend, 

"  I  am  glad  to  learn  from  a  letter  received  from  an  American 
clergyman  just  returned  from  England  that  thou  art  engaged  in 
preparing  a  biography  of  thy  lamented  husband.  It  seems  to  me 
very  fitting  that  the  life  of  such  a  man  as  Charles  Kingsley  should 
be  written  by  one  so  fully  acquainted  with  the  noble  and  geneious 

•  The  meaning  of  this  strange  refrain  is  not  known.  Some  were  doubtful 
wlielher,  as  no  explanation  was  given  by  Mr.  Kingsley,  it  would  not  be  lietter  to 
omit  it ;  but  Mr.  Froude,  who  thought  this  poem  one  of  the  finest  of  his  ballads,  on 
being  consulted,  wrote  :  "I  am  in  favor  of  keeping  the  refrain.  The  music  of 
the  song  will  be  incomplete  without  it:  and  as  the  words  went  humming 
through  his  head,  the  refrain  went  along  with  them.  It  presses  like  an  inex 
arable  destiny,  and  makes  you  feel  the  iron  force  with  which  poor  Lorraine  vva» 
swept  to  her  fate."     .... 


Letter  from    Whit  tier.  47  J 

personal  qualities  of  the  reformer,  j^oet,  and  theologian.  In  this 
country  his  memory  is  cherished  by  thousands,  who,  after  long  ad- 
miring the  genius  of  the  successful  author,  have  learned,  in  his 
brief  visit,  to  love  him  as  a  man. 

"  1  shall  never  forget  my  first  meeting  with  him  in  Boston.  I 
began,  naturally  enough,  to  speak  of  his  literary  work,  when  lie 
somewhat  abruptly  turned  the  conversation  upon  the  great  thcmeil 
of  life  and  duty.  The  solemn  questions  of  a  future  life,  and  the 
final  destiny  of  the  race,  seemed  pressing  upon  him,  not  so  much 
for  an  answer  (for  he  had  solved  them  all  by  simple  faith  in  the 
Divine  Goodness),  as  for  the  sympathetic  response  of  one  whose 
views  he  believed  to  be,  in  a  great  degree,  coincident  with  his  own. 
'  I  sometimes  doubt  and  distrust  myself,'  he  said,  '  but  I  see  some 
hope  for  everybody  else.  To  me  the  Gospel  of  Christ  seems  in- 
deed Good  Tidings  of  great  joy  to  all  jjeople ;  and  1  think  we  may 
safely  trust  the  mercy  which  endurethy<?r  ever.'  It  impressed  me 
strongly  to  find  the  world-known  author  ignoring  his  literary  fame, 
unobservant  of  the  strange  city  whose  streets  he  was  treading  for 
the  first  time,  and  engaged  only  with  '  thoughts  that  wander  through 
eternity.'  All  I  saw  of  him  left  upon  me  the  feeling  that  I  was  in 
contact  with  a  profoundly  earnest  and  reverent  spirit.  His  heart 
seemed  overcharged  with  interest  in  the  welfare,  physical,  moral, 
and  spiritual,  of  his  race.  I  was  conscious  in  his  presence  of  the 
bracing  atmosphere  of  a  noble  nature.  He  seemed  to  me  one  of 
the  manliest  of  men. 

"  I  forbear  to  speak  of  the  high  estimate  which,  in  common  with 
all  English-speaking  people,  I  place  upon  his  literary  life-work. 
My  copy  of  his  '  Hypatia '  is  worn  by  frequent  perusal,  and  the 
echoes  of  his  rare  and  beautiful  lyrics  never  die  out  of  my  memory. 
But  since  I  have  seen  /«';«,  the  man  seems  greater  than  the  author, 
With  profound  respect  and  sympathy, 

"1  am  truly  thy  friend, 

"John  G.  Wi  jftifr." 

T^  Mrs.   K-ng  U}  , 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

1874-5- 
Aged  55. 

Rct'jm  from  Amerka— WcTk  at  Eversley — Illness  at  Westminster—  New  Antittf 
— Last  Sermons  in  the  Abbey — Leaves  the  Cloisters  for  Ever- -Last  Return 
to  Eversley— The  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death — Last  Illness  and  Dep>art- 
ure — The  Victory  of  Life  over  Death  and  Time. 

It  was  sultry  August  weather  when  he  returned  to  Eversley  from 
America ;  there  was  much  sickness  and  a  great  mortality  in  the 
parish,  and  he  was  out  -among  his  people  twice  and  three  times 
a  day  in  the  burning  sun  and  dry  easterly  wind.  His  curate,  the 
Rev.  Elis  Price,  was  away  for  his  well-earned  holiday ;  and 
nis  great  joy  at  being  with  his  poor  people  again  made  him 
plunge  too  eagerly  and  suddenly  into  work,  and  Sunday  services, 
before  he  had  regained  his  strength  after  his  illness  in  Colorado. 
When  he  went  up  to  Westminster  in  September,  a  severe  attack 
of  congestion  of  the  liver  came  on,  which  alarmed  his  friends,  and 
prevented  his  preaching  in  the  Abbey  on  the  first  Sunday  of  liis 
residence.  This  attack  shook  him  terribly,  and  from  that  time  he 
was  unable  to  preach  more  than  once  a  day  during  his  residence  ; 
but,  though  altered  and  emaciated,  he  seemed  recovering  strength, 
when,  early  in  October,  a  shadow  came  over  his  home,  in  the 
dangerous  illness  of  his  wife,  touching  him  in  his  tenderest  point, 
and  filling  him  with  fears  for  the  future.  When  all  immediate  dan- 
ger was  over,  it  was  with  difficulty  he  was  persuaded  to  leave  her 
and  take  a  few  days'  chxnge  of  air  and  scene,  before  his  No  vein 
Ler  wojk  commenced,  at  Lord  John  Thynne's,  in  Bedfordshire, 
and  with  his  friend  Mr.  Fuller  Maitland,  in  Essex.*  From  these 
visits,  however,  he  returned  invigorated  in  health  and  spirits,  and 
got  through  his  sermons  in  the  Abbey  with  less  difficulty.  The 
congregations  were    enormous — the    sermons    powerful    as    ever, 


*  At  Stanstead,  during  this  visit,  the  friend  with  whom  he  was  conversing  on 
the  deepest  doctrines  of  Christianity  said  she  could  nev£r  forget  his  look  and 
voice,  as  he  folded  his  arms,  and  bowing  his  head,  said,  "  I  cannot  — rannot  liv« 
with-jut  the  Man  Christ  Tesus." 


The  last  Sermon,  475 

though  Iheir  preparation  was  an  increasing  labor.  The  change  in 
his  appearance  was  observed  by  many.  "  I  went  back,"  said  aii 
old  correspondent,  who  had  gone  to  hear  him  jireach  in  West- 
minster Abbey,  "  sad  at  the  remembrance  of  the  bent  back  and 
shrunken  figure,  and  while  hoping  the  weakness  was  but  tempo- 
rary, I  grieved  to  see  one  who  had  carried  himself  so  nobly,  broken 
down  by  illness. 

His  sermon  on  All  Saints'  Day  will  never  be  forgotten  by  those 
who  heard  it.  It  was  like  a  note  of  preparation  for  the  life  of 
ete'-nal  blessedness  in  the  vision  of  God  upon  which  he  was  sc 
soon  to  enter.  It  was  a  revealing  too  of  his  own  deepest  belief 
as  to  what  that  blessedness  meant,  with  back  glances  into  the 
darker  passages  and  bitter  struggles  of  his  own  earthly  life  and 
warfare  with  evil. 

On  Advent  Sunday,  November  29,  he  preached  his  last  sermon 
in  the  Abbey,  with  intense  fervor.  It  was  the  winding  up  of  his 
work  in  the  Abbey,  but  neither  he  nor  those  who  hung  upon  his 
words  thought  that  it  was  the  winding-up  of  his  public  ministrations 
and  the  last  time  he  would  enter  the  pulpit.  The  text  was  Luke 
xix.  41,  Christ  weeping  over  Jerusalem.  A  great  storm  wa%  raging 
over  London  that  afternoon,  and  the  gale  seemed  almost  to  shake 
the  Abbey,  which  made  the  service  to  one  who  was  keenly  sensi- 
tive, as  he  was,  to  all  changes  of  weather,  especially  those  which 
would  affect  the  fate  of  ships  at  sea,  most  exciting. 

The  sermon  was  a  characteristic  one.  "  Advent,"  he  said, 
"should  be  a  season  not  merely  of  warning,  awe,  repentance,  but 
a  season  of  trust  and  hope  and  content."  He  sketched  the  lead- 
ing features  of  his  past  teaching  in  the  Abbey — dwelling  on  the 
Kingship  and  Divine  Government  of  Christ  over  races,  nations,  in- 
dividuals— Hik  infinite  rigor  and  yet  infinite  tenderness  of  pity^ 
the  divine  humanity  which  possessed  Him  as  he  wept  over  the 
doomed  city,  and  cried  out,  "  How  often  would  I  have  gathered 
ihee  as  a  hen  gathereth  her  chickens  under  her  wings,"  and  closed 
with  these  words  : 

"And  what  is  true  of  nations  and  of  institutions — is  it  net  tru« 
of  individuals,  of  each  separate  human  brother  of  the  Son  of  Man  1* 

"  Ah — and  is  there  a  young  life  ruined  by  its  own  folly — a  young 
heart  broken  by  its  own  wilfulness — an  elder  man  or  woman  too, 
who  is  fast  losing  the  finer  instincts,  the  nobler  aims  of  youth  in 
live  restlessness  of  covetousness,  of  fashion,  of  ambit  m  ?   Is  there 


476  Charles  Kings Cey 

one  such  poor  soul  over  whom  Christ  does  not  grieve  ?  To  whom, 
at  some  supreme  crisis  of  their  Hves,  He  does  not  whisper — 'Ah, 
beautiful  organism — thou,  too,  art  a  thought  of  God — thou,  too,  if 
thou  wert  but  in  harmony  with  thyself  and  God,  a  microcosmic 
City  of  God  I  Ah  !  that  thou  hadst  known — even  thou — at  least  in 
this  thy  day — the  things  which  belong  to  thy  peace?' 

"  Shall  1  go  on  ?  shall  I  add  to  the  words  of  doom  ?  '  But  now 
they  are  hid  from  thine  eyes?  Thou  hast  gambled  with  thine  own 
destiny  too  long.  Thou  hast  fixed  thy  habits.  Thou  hast  formed 
thy  character.  It  is  too  late  to  mend.  Thou  art  left  henceforth 
to  the  perpetual  unrest  which  thou  hast  chosen— to  thine  own  lusts 
and  passions  ;  and  the  angels  of  peace  depart  from  thy  doomed 
heart,  as  they  did  in  the  old  legend,  from  the  doomed  Temple  of 
Jerusalem — sighing — '  Let  us  go  hence  ' — shall  I  say  that  ?  God 
forbid — it  is  not  for  me  to  finish  the  sentence — or  to  pronounce  the 
doom  of  any  soul. 

"  But  it  is  for  me  to  say — as  I  say  now  to  each  of  you — Oh  that 
you  each  may  know  the  time  of  your  visitation — and  may  listen  to 
the  voice  of  Christ,  whetiever  and  however  He  may  whisper  to  you, 
*  Come  unto  Me,  thou  weary  and  heavy-laden  heart,  and  I  will  give 
thee  jResL' 

"  He  may  come  to  you  in  many  ways.  In  ways  in  which  the 
world  would  never  recognize  Him — in  which  perhaps  neither  you 
nor  I  shall  recognize  Him  ;  but  it  will  be  enough,  I  hope,  if  we 
but  hear  His  message,  and  obey  His  gracious  inspiration,  let  Him 
speak  through  whatever  means  He  will. 

"  He  may  come  to  us,  by  some  crisis  in  our  life,  either  for  sorrow 
or  for  bliss.  He  may  come  to  us  by  a  great  failure  ;  by  a  great 
disappomtment — to  teach  the  wilful  and  ambitious  soul,  that  not  in 
that  direction  lies  the  path  of  peace.  He  may  come  in  some  un- 
expected happiness  to  teach  that  same  soul  that  He  is  able  and 
willing  to  give  abundantly  beyond  all  that  we  can  ask  or  think. 
He  may  come  to  us,  when  our  thoughts  are  cleaving  to  the  ground, 
and  ready  to  grow  earthy  of  the  earth — through  noble  poetry,  noble 
music,  noble  art — through  aught  which  awakens  once  more  in  us 
the  instinct  of  the  true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good.  He  may  come 
to  us  when  our  souls  are  restless  and  weary,  through  the  lepose  oi 
Nature — the  repose  of  the  lonely  snow-peak,  and  of  the  sleeping 
forest,  of  the  clouds  of  sunset  and  of  the  summer  sea,  and  whisper 
Peace.  Or  He  may  come,  as  He  may  come  this  very  night  to 
many  a  gallant  soul — not  in  the  repose  of  Nature,  but  in  her  rage 
— in  howling  storm,  and  blinding  foam,  and  ruthless  rocks,  and 
whelming  surge — and  whisper  to  them  even  so — as  the  sea  swallows 
all  of  them  which  it  can  take — of  calm  beyond,  which  this  world 
cannot  give  and  cannot  take  away. 

*'  He  may  come  to  us  when  we  are  fierce  and  prejudiced,  with 
that  still  jinall  voice — so  sweet  and  vet  so  keen.     '  Understand 


Last  Illness.  477 

those  who  misunderstand  thee.  Be  fair  to  those  who  are  unfair  to 
thee.  Be  just  and  merciful  to  those  whom  thou  wouldst  like  to 
hate.  Forgive  and  thou  shalt  be  forgiven  ;  for  with  what  measure 
thou  measurcst  unto  others,  it  shall  be  measured  to  thee  again.' 
He  comes  to  us  surely,  when  we  are  selfish  and  luxurious,  in  every 
sufferer  who  needs  our  help,  and  says,  '  If  you  do  good  to  one  of 
these,  my  brethren,  you  do  it  unto  Me.' 

"  But  most  surely  does  Christ  come  to  us,  and  often  most  hap- 
pily, and  most  clearly  does  he  speak  to  us — in  the  face  of  a  little 
child,  fresh  out  of  hcctven.  Ah,  let  us  take  heed  that  we  despise 
not  one  of  these  little  ones,  lest  we  despise  our  Lord  Himself. 
For  as  often  as  we  enter  into  communion  with  little  children,  so 
often  does  Christ  come  to  us.  So  often,  as  in  Judea  of  old,  does 
He  take  a  little  child  and  set  him  in  the  midst  of  us,  that  from  its 
simplicity,  docility,  and  trust — the  restless,  the  mutinous,  and  the 
ambitious  may  learn  the  things  which  belong  to  their  peace — so 
often  does  He  say  to  us,  '  Except  ye  be  changed  and  become  as 
iliis  little  child,  ye  shall  in  no  wise  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven.  Take  my  yoke  upon  you  and  learn  of  Me.  For  I  am 
rneek  and  lowly  of  heart,  and  ye  shall  find  rest  unto  your  souls.' 

"  And  therefore  let  us  say,  in  utter  faith,  '  Come  as  Thou 
SEEST  best — But  in  whatsoever  way  Thou  comest — even  so 
come,  Lord  Jesus.*  " 

As  soon  as  the  Abbey  service  was  over,  he  came  home  much 
exhausted,  and  went  straight  up  to  his  wife's  room.  "And  now 
my  work  here  is  done,  thank  God !  and  ....  I  finished 
with  your  favorite  text." 

The  next  day  he  dined  at  the  Deanery  to  meet  Dr.  Caird,  before 
attending  his  lecture  in  the  Abbey  at  the  special  evening  service. 
The  night  was  damp,  and  coming  out  into  the  cold  cloister  he 
caught  a  fresh  cold,  and  coughed  all  through  the  night ;  but  he 
made  light  of  it,  for  he  could  think  of  nothing  but  the  joy  of  return- 
ing with  his  wife  to  Eversley  for  Christmas  and  the  quiet  winter's 
work.  And  on  the  3rd  of  December,  full  of  spirits  and  thankful- 
ness, he  left  the  cloisters  forever,  and  took  her  with  tenderest  care 
Ic  Kversley.  But  his  happiness  was  shortlived  ;  the  journey  down 
had  had  serious  consequences  for  hei,  and  that  night  the  Angel  of 
Death  for  the  first  time  for  thirty-one  years  seemed  hovering  o\'er 
the  little  rectory.  He  had  been  engaged  by  the  Queen's  command 
to  go  to  Windsor  Castle  the  following  Saturday  for  two  dajs. 
Telegrams  were  sent  there,  and  to  his  children  who  were  absent. 
Still   he   could    not   believe    there    was  danger,  till  he   was   told 


4  73  Charles  Kingsley. 

Ihat  there  was  no  hope,  and  then- -"  My  own  dean- wan  ant  was 
signed,"  he  said,  "with  those  words."  Children  and  friends  col 
lected  round  him,  while  he  gathered  himself  up  with  a  noble  self 
repression  to  give  comfort  where  it  was  needed.  His  ministrations 
in  the  sick  room  showed  the  intensity  of  his  own  faith,  as  he 
strengthened  the  weak,  encouraged  the  fearful,  and  in  the  light  of 
the  Cross  of  Christ  and  the  love  of  God,  spoke  of  an  eternal 
reunion  and  the  indestructibility  of  that  married  love  which,  i\ 
genuine  on  earth,  can  only  be  severed  for  a  brief  moment.  When 
asked  if  he  thought  it  cowardly  for  a  poor  soul,  who  had  been 
encompassed  with  such  protecting  love  as  his,  to  tremble  on  the 
brink  of  the  dark  river  which  all  must  cross  alone — to  shrink  from 
leaving  husband,  children — the  love  that  had  made  life  blessed  and 
real  and  full  for  so  many  years — and  to  go  alone  into  the  unknown  : 
"Cowardly!"  he  said.  "Don't  you  think  I  would  rather  some 
one  put  a  pistol  to  my  head  than  lie  on  that  bed  there  waiting? 
But^ — "  he  added,  "it  is  not  darkness  you  are  going  to,  for  God  is 
light.  It  is  not  lonely,  for  Christ  is  with  you.  It  is  not  an  un- 
known countr}'^,  for  Christ  is  there."  And  when  the  dreary  interval 
before  reunion  was  mentioned,  he  spoke  of  the  possibility  of  all 
consciousness  of  time  being  so  abolished  that  what  would  be  long 
years  to  the  survivor  might  be  only  a  moment  to  the  separated  soul 
that  had  passed  over  the  River  of  Death,  And  so,  with  words  of 
strong  consolation  and  hope,  with  daily  prayer  and  reading  from  the 
Gospel  and  Epistles  of  St.  John  and  the  Psalms,  he  preached 
peace  and  forgiveness  till  all  was  calm  ;  and  dwelling  on  the  border- 
land together  for  weeks  of  deep  communion,  every  chapter  of  the 
past  was  gone  over  once  more,  and  "  life  was  all  re-touched  again," 
— favorite  poetry  was  read  for  the  last  time,  Wordsworth's  "Ode 
to  Immortality,"  Milton's  magnificent  Ode  to  "Tune,"  again  and 
again,  Matthew  Arnold's  "Buried  Life,"  and  certain  passages  from 
Shakspeare.  Once  more  he  himself  administered  the  Holy  Com- 
munion to  his  wife,  children,  a'^d  servants  ;  and  once  again,  before 
he  himself  lay  down  to  die,  he  leceived  it  with  them  from  the  hands 
of  Mr.  Hanison.  But  though  his  own  iron  will  and  utter  submis- 
sion to  the  Will  of  God  enabled  him  to  be  outwardly  calm  in  the 
sick  room,  and  even  to  speak  there  of  the  lonely  years  which  he 
feared  were  before  him,  of  the  grave  where,  he  said,  he  would  allow 
no  one  but  himself  to  do  the  last  office,  where  he  would  place  the 


The    Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death.      479 

three  Latin  words  ii:  which  the  life  of  his  Hfe,  past,  present,  and 
future,  are  gathered  uj), — the  charm  of  life  for  him  was  over,  and 
he  spoke  the  truth  when  lie  said  his  "heart  was  broken,"  for  so  it 
rva~>.  He  was  ill  himself,  and  became  careless  of  his  own  health; 
reckless  of  cold  and  snow ;  his  cough  became  bronchitic.  0\\  the 
28th  of  December  he  took  to  his  bed,  and  pneumonia,  with  its 
terrible  symptoms,  came  on  rapidly.  He  had  promised  his  wife  to 
"tight  for  life"  for  his  children's  sake,  and  he  did  so  for  a  time; 
but  the  enemy,  or,  as  he  would  have  said  himself,  "kindly  Death,'' 
was  too  strong  for  him,  and  in  a  few  weeks  the  battle  was  over  and 
he  was  at  rest.  The  weather  was  bitter,  and  he  had  been  warned 
that  his  recovery  depended  on  the  same  temperature  being  kept 
up  in  his  room,  and  on  his  never  leaving  it ;  but  one  day  he  leapt 
out  of  bed,  came  into  his  wife's  room  for  a  few  moments,  and  tak- 
ing her  hand  in  his,  said,  "This  is  heaven,  don't  speak ;"  but,  after 
a  short  silence,  a  severe  fit  of  coughing  came  on,  he  could  say  no 
more,  and  they  never  met  again.  When  told  that  another  move 
would  be  fatal,  he  replied,  "  We  have  said  all  to  each  other,  we 
have  made  up  our  accounts  ;"  and  often  repeated,  "  It  is  all  right, 
all  as  it  should  be."  For  a  few  days  a  correspondence  was  kept  up 
in  pencil;  and  on  December  30  he  wrote  of  this  "terrible  trial," 
the  fiery  trial  of  separation,  to  both  so  bitter  at  such  a  moment, 
"But,"  he  adds,  "I  am  somewhat  past  fretting — almost  past  feel- 
ing  I  know  it  must  be  right,  because  it  is  so  stran^je 

and  painful."  Again,  on  New  Year's  Eve,  "  I  am  much  better  .n 
all  ways.     Thank  God  for  the  gleam  of  sun  and  the  frost  on  the 

window-pane "     And  again,  in  the  last  letter  he  ever 

wrote,  on  January  3rd,  a  bright  morning,  the  first  Sunday  in  the 
year  :  "  Ah  !  what  a  good  omen  for  the  coming  year — this  lovely 
Sunday  morning.  May  it  mean  light  and  peace  and  blessing  in 
both  worlds  for  us  all !  ,  ,  .  ."  But,  to  use  his  own  words,  it 
then  became  "too  painful,  too  tantalising,"  and  the  letters  ceased. 
He  was  now  kept  constantly  under  the  influence  of  opiates  to 
quiet  the  cough  and  keep  off  haemorrhage,  and  his  dreams  were 
always  of  his  travels  in  the  West  Indies,  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and 
California.  These  scenes  he  would  describe  night  after  night  to  th  p 
trained  nurse  from  Westminster  Hospital  who  sat  up  with  him,  ;Tid 
whose  unwearied  care  and  skill  c^.n  never  be  forgotten.  He  wouUl 
tell  her,  too,  of  the  travels  of  hiri  eldest  son  in  America,  of  whom 


48c  Charles  Kings  ley. 

he  continually  spoke  with  love  and  pride,  and  to  whose  success  in 
life  he  so  eagerly  looked.  His  own  physical  experiences  were 
very  singular  to  him,  for  he  sat  as  a  spectator  outside  himself,  and 
said  if  he  recovered  he  would  write  a  book  about  them.  Early  in 
January,  when  the  alarming  symptoms  came  on,  his  devoted  medi- 
cal attendant,  Mr.  Heynes,  of  Eversley,  who  was  day  and  night  a' 
the  Rectory,  begged  for  further  advice ;  and  Dr.  Hawkesley,  who 
twice  came  dovvn  from  London,  did  not  despair  of  Mr  Kingsley ; 
he  said  he  never  saw  a  "  more  splendid  fight  for  life,"  and  was 
struck  with  his  brilliancy  in  describing  his  symptoms. 

He  spoke  but  little  latterly,  and  the  fear  of  exciting  him  made 
those  around  afraid  of  telling  him  anything  that  would  rouse  him 
to  the  sense  of  his  great  loneliness  But  one  morning  before  his 
condition  became  hopeless,  when  some  little  letters,  enclosing 
some  drawings  to  amuse  him,  had  come  from  the  young  Princes  at 
Sandringham,  who  loved  him  well  and  were  sorry  for  his  illness 
and  his  grief,  his  doctor  said  they  might  be  shown  him.  They 
touched  him  deeply ;  and  his  messages  in  answer  were  among  the 
last  he  sent.  On  Sunday,  the  17th,  he  sat  up  for  a  few  moments, 
where  he  could  see  from  the  bedroom  window  which  looked  into 
the  churchyard  his  dear  people  go  into  church,  and  spoke  of  their 
"  goodness  "  to  him  and  how  he  loved  them.  He  reiterated  the 
words,  "It  is  all  right."  "All  tender  rule.''  One  morning  earlj 
he  asked  the  nurse,  if  it  was  light,  to  open  the  shutters,  for  he  loved 
light.  It  was  still  dark.  "Ah  !  well,"  he  said,  "  the  light  is  good 
and  the  darkness  is  good — it  is  all  good."  From  sleeping  so  umch 
he  was  unconscious  of  the  lapse  of  time,  "  How  long  have  I  been 
in  bed  ?'  he  said  one  day,  and  on  being  told  three  weeks,  he  said, 
*'  It  does  not  seem  three  days.  Ah,  I  live  in  fairyland,  or  I  should 
gc  mad ! " 

On  the  20th  of  January  the  Prince  of  Wales,  whose  regard  and 
affection  had  never  failed  for  fourteen  years,  requested  Sir  William 
G;il'.  to  go  down  to  Eversley.  He,  too,  thought  recovery  possible  , 
but  immediately  after  his  visit  haemorrhage  returned — the  end 
seemed  near,  and  then  the  full  truth — and  not  a  painful  one — burst 
upon  him.  "  Heynes,"  he  said,  "  I  am  hit ;  this  last  shot  has  told 
— did  F.  tell  you  about  the  funeral  ?  We  settled  it  all,"  and  then 
\\G  repeated,  in  the  very  words  used  to  himself,  the  arrangements 
that  had  been  made  in  view  of  the  event  he  had  been  dreading 


Rest  at  Last. 

which  God  mercifully  spared  him  ;  and  afier  mentioning  the  n&.nes 
of  the  bearers  selected  (laboring  mer  endeared  b}'^  old  parish 
memories),  "  Let  there  be  no  parai)hernalia,  no  hatbands,  no  car- 
riages .  .  .  ."  He  was  calm  and  content.  He  had  no  need 
to  put  his  mind  into  a  fresh  attitude,  for  his  life  had  long  been 
"  hid  with  Christ  in  God.'  Twenty-rive  years  before,  in  speaking 
of  a  friend  who  did  not  accept  Christianity,  he  had  said,  "The 
more  I  see  of  him,  the  more  I  learn  to  love  the  true  doctrines  of 
the  Gospel,  because  I  see  more  and  more  that  only  in  faith  and 
love  to  the  Incarnate  God,  our  Saviour,  can  the  cleverest,  as  well 
as  the  simplest,  find  the  Peace  of  God  which  passes  understanding." 
In  this  faith  he  had  lived — and  as  he  had  lived,  so  he  died — 
humble,  confident,  unbewildered.  That  night  he  was  heard  mur- 
muring, "  No  more  fighting — no  more  fighting  ;  "  and  then  followed 
intense,  earnest  prayers,  which  were  his  habit  when  alone, — too 
sacred  for  any  listener.  Yes,  his  warfare  was  accomplished,  he 
had  fought  the  good  fight,  and  never  grounded  his  arms  till  God 
took  them  mercifully  out  of  his  brave  hands  and  gave  him  rest. 

It  was  on  one  of  those,  his  last  nights  on  earth,  his  daughtei 
heard  him  exclaim,  "  How  beautiful  God  is."  For  the  last  two 
days  before  he  departed,  he  asked  no  questions,  and  sent  no  mes- 
sages to  his  wife,  thinking  all  was  over,  and  hoping  that  at  last  the 
dream  of  his  life  was  fulfilled  of  their  dying  together ;  and  under 
this  impression,  it  is  thought,  when  the  faithful  nurse  who  had  been 
with  his  children  since  their  birth,  left  his  wife  for  a  moment  to 
come  to  her  dying  master  the  day  before  he  went,  "  Ah,"  he  said, 
"  dear  nurse,  and  I,  too,  am  come  to  an  end  ;  it  is  all  right — all  as 
it  should  be"  and  closed  his  eyes  again.  On  that  same  morning 
from  his  bed  he  had  looked  out  over  the  beloved  glebe  once  more. 
The  snow,  which  had  been  deep  for  weeks,  had  cleared  a  little,  the 
grass  of  the  pasture  was  green,  and  he  said,  "  Tell  Grenville  (his 
youngest  son,  who  had  just  left  him  after  helping  to  arrange  his 
bed)  I  am  looking  at  the  most  beautiful  scene  I  ever  saw,"  adding 
some  words  of  love  and  approval,  that  were  scarcely  audible. 

The  last  morning,  at  five  o'clock,  just  after  his  eldest  daughter, 
who,  with  his  medical  man  and  Mr.  Harrison,  had  sat  up  all  night, 
had  left  him,  and  he  thought  himself  alone,  he  was  heard,  in  a 
clear  voice,  repeating  the  words  of  the  Burial  Service  : 

31 


482  Charles  Kingsley. 

"  Th(m  Knowest,  O  Lord,  the  secrets  of  our  Iicarts ;  shut  no* 
Thy  merciful  ears  to  our  prayer,  but  spare  us,  O  Lord  most  holy, 
O  God  most  mighty,  O  holy  and  merciful  Saviour,  Thou  most 
worthy  Judge  Eternal,  suffer  us  not,  a<  our  last  hour,  from  any 
pains  of  death,  to  fall  from  Thee." 

He  turned  on  his  side  after  this,  and  never  spoke  again,  and  be- 
fore midday,  on  the  23rd  of  January — without  sigh  or  struggle — 
breathed  his  last  breath,  so  gently  that  his  eldest  daughter  and  the 
family  nurse,  who  were  watching  him,  could  scarcely  tell  that  all 
was  over.  Twenty  years  before,  and  how  often  since,  he  had 
expressed  his  longing  for  that  moment :  "  God  forgive  me  if  I  ari 
wrong,  but  I  look  forward  to  it  with  an  intense  and  reverent  curi- 
osity." And  now  the  great  secret  that  he  had  longed  to  know  was 
revealed  to  him,  and  he  was  satisfied. 

On  the  afternoon  of  his  departure  a  telegram  was  sent  to  Ches 
ter,  where  the  daily  bulletins  had  been  watched  for  so  eagerly, 
"  Canon  Kingsley  peacefully  expired  ;  "  and  on  the  Sunday  morn- 
ing the  tolling  of  the  Cathedral  bell,  and  the  omission  of  his  name 
in  the  daily  prayer  for  the  sick,  confirmed  the  worst  fears  of 
many  loving  hearts.  For  many  weeks  the  prayers  of  the  congrega- 
tion had  been  asked  for  *'  Charles  and  Fanny  Kingsley."  Not 
only  in  Chester  Cathedral  and  Westminster  Abbey,  but  in  other 
churches  and  chapels,  at  prayer-meetings  too,  in  London,  Sheffield, 
and  elsewhere,  his  life  was  prayed  for,  and  God  in  His  great  mercy, 
had  answered  by  giving  him  immortal  life. 

As  soon  as  the  news  reached  Westminster,  a  telegram  from  the 
Dean  brought  these  words  to  his  children  :  ''  Bear  up  under  the 
blow.  You  will  perhaps  choose  Eversley,  but  the  Abbey  is  open 
lo  the  Canon  and  the  Poet." 

Deanery,  Westminster,  Jan.  24,  1875 

"  T  cannot  let  the  day  pass  without  a  word  in  addition  to  the 
brief  telegram  I  sent  last  night. 

"  It  seems  but  a  few  years,  though  it  is  many,  since  I  first  saw 
your  dear  father  at  Oxford,  and  again  still  fewer,  though  that  is  also 
long  ago,  since  I  for  the  first  time  was  at  Eversley — and  our  meet- 
ings have  been  but  few  and  far  between — but  I  always  felt  that  he 
was  a  faithful  friend,  and  a  brave  champion  for  much  and  many 
that  I  loved  ;  and  when  he  was  transplanted  among  »s,  my  deaj 
wife  and  I  both  looked  forward  to  the  muhiplicadon  of  these  meet 
ings — to  long  years  of  labor  together. 


Honored  In  his  Death.  483 

"  God  has  ordered  it  otherwise.  lie  had  done  his  work.  He  had 
earned  his  rest.    You  had  seen  all  that  was  highest  and  best  in  him. 

"  The  short  slay  amongst  us  here  had  given  him  a  new  Ufe,  and 
had  endeared  Iiim  to  a  new  world.  He  has  gone  in  the  fulness  of  his 
:-irenglh,  like  one  of  his  own  tropical  suns — no  twilight — no  fading. 
lie  of  good  heart,  for  you  have  much  for  which  to  be  thankful. 

"  J  ventured  to  say  something  about  the  place  of  burial.  It  is 
far  tlie  most  probable  (from  what  I  have  heard  that  he  had  said) 
that  Eversley  will  have  been  the  place  chosen  by  him  and  by  you 
— most  natural  that  it  should  be  so.  Had  his  days  ended  here, 
then  I  should  have  pressed  that  the  right  which  we  have  acquired 
in  him  should  have  the  chief  claim,  and  you  know  that  should  the 
other  not  be  jjaramount,  here  we  should  be  too  glad  to  lay  him, 
not  by  that  official  right  which  I  try  to  discourage,  but  by  the  natu- 
ral inheritance  of  genius  and  character.  Any  way,  let  me  know 
the  day  and  hour  of  the  funeral.  If  none  nearer  or  more  suitable 
should  be  thought  of,  I,  as  the  chief  of  his  last  earthly  sphere,  would 
ask  to  render  the  last  honors. 

"  Yours  sincerely, 

"A.  P.  Stanley." 

There  was  no  hesitation  with  those  who  knew  his  own  feelings, 
and  at  Eversley  he  was  buried  on  the  28th  of  January  ;  no  one  was 
invited  to  come,  but  early  in  the  day  the  churchyard  was  full. 
There  had  been  deep  snow  and  bitter  cold  for  many  weeks.  But 
the  day  was  kindly,  soft,  and  mild,  with  now  and  then  gleams  of 
sunshine.  He  was  carried  to  the  grave  by  villagers  who  had 
known,  loved,  and  trusted  him  for  years.  The  coffin,  covered  with 
flowers,  was  met  at  the  garden-gate  by  the  Bishop  of  Winchester, 
the  Dean  of  Westminster,  Mr.  Powles,  his  oldest  friend,  his  two 
last  curates.  Rev.  William  Harrison,  and  Rev.  Elis  Price,  and  his 
churchwarden  Sir  William  Cope,  and  was  laid  before  the  altar, 
where  for  thirty-two  years  he  had  ministered  so  faithfully,  before  the 
service  was  fmished  at  the  grave.  Roman  Catholic  and  Protes- 
tant, Churchman  and  Dissenter,  American  and  English,  met  at  thai 
grave ;  every  profession,  every  rank,  every  school  of  thought,  was 
represented.  Soldiers*  and  sailors  were  there  ;  among  them  three 
Victoria  Cross  Officers,  men  whom  he  had  loved,  and  who  honored 
him.  The  Master  of  Fox  Hounds,  with  the  huntsman  and  the 
whip,  were  there  also,  and  from  his  beloved  Chester  came  the  Dean 

*  Gen.  Sir  William  Codrington  ;  Col.  Sir  Charles  Russell,  V.C.  ;  Col.  Alfred 
Janes,  V.C.  ;  Col.  Evelyn  Woor],  V.  C.  ;  Captain  F.  Maurice,  &c. 


484  Charles  Kings  ley. 

and  a  deputation  from  the  Natural  Science  Society  he  had  founded.* 
"  I  have  been  at  many  state  funerals,"  said  a  naval  officer  who  was 
present,  "  but  never  did  I  see  such  a  sight  as  Charles  Kingsley's." 

"Who,"  says  Max  Miiller,  "can  forget  that  funeral  on  the  28ll' 
-^f' January,  1875,  and  the  large  sad  throng  that  gathered  round  his 
^'lave  ?  There  was  the  representative  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  and, 
close  by,  the  gipsies  of  Eversley  Common,  who  used  to  call  him 
tlieir  '  Patricorai '  (their  Priest  King).  There  was  the  squire  ol 
his  vil'age,  and  the  laborers  young  and  old,  to  whom  he  had  been 
a  friend  and  a  father.  There  were  governors  of  distant  colonies,^ 
officers,  and  sailors,  the  bishop  of  his  diocese,  and  the  dean  of  hu 
abbey ;  there  were  the  leading  Nonconformists  of  the  neighbor- 
hood, and  his  own  devoted  curates,  peers  and  members  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  authors  and  publishers,  and  the  huntsmen  in 
pink  ;  and,  outside  the  churchyard,  the  horses  and  the  hounds,  for 
though  as  good  a  clergyman  as  any,  Charles  Kingsley  had  been  a 
good  sportsman,  and  had  taken  in  his  life  many  a  fence  as  bravely 
as  he  took  the  last  fence  of  all,  without  fear  or  trembling.  Ail  that 
he  had  loved  and  all  that  had  loved  him  was  there,  and  few  eyes 
were  dry  when  he  was  laid  in  his  own  gravel  bed,  the  old  trees, 
which  he  had  planted  and  cared  for,  waving  their  branches  to  him 
for  the  last  time,  and  the  grey  sunny  sky  looking  down  with  calm 
pity  on  the  deserted  rectory,  and  on  the  short  joys  and  the  shorter 
sufferings  of  mortal  man. 

•'  AU  went  home  feeling  that  life  was  poorer,  and  every  one  knew 
that  he  had  lost  a  friend  who  had  been,  in  some  peculiar  sense,  his 
own.  Charles  Kingsley  will  be  missed  in  England,  in  the  English 
colonies,  in  America,  where  he  spent  his  last  happy  year ;  aye, 
wherever  Saxon  speech  and  Saxon  thought  is  understood.  He  will 
be  mourned  for,  yearned  for,  in  every  place  in  which  he  passed 
some  days  of  his  busy  life.  As  to  myself,  I  feel  as  if  another  cable 
had  snapped  that  tied  me  to  this  hosijitable  shore." 

Such  was  the  scene  at  Eversley,  while  at  Cliester  and  at  West- 
ninster  the  cathedral  bell  tolled  for  the  well-beloved  Canon,  whom 
.liey  should  see  no  more. 

:<(  4:  4<  *  IK  * 

***** 

The  Sunday  following  his  funeral,  sermons  on  his  life  and  death 
were  numerous.  Dean  Stanley  in  London,  Dean  Howson  at 
Chester,  Churchmen,  Boptists,  and  other  Nonconformists,  both  it 

*  Dr.  Sf'i'.i.erforth,  Mr.  Shepheard,  Mr.  Manning,  Mr.  Griffith. 

\  His  Excellency  Sir  Arthur  Gordon  ;  Col.  Sir  Thomas  Gore  Browne. 


•      A  Memorial  Fund,  485 

I^ndon,  Chester,  and  elsewhere,  while  his  own  puipit  at  Everslev 
Church  was  occupied  by  Sir  William  Cope  in  the  morning,  and  by 
his  devoted  and  attached  curate, the  Rev.  Elis  Price,  in  the  afternoon. 

Telegrams  and  letters,  full  of  reverent  love  for  him  and  of  sym- 
pathy for  those  whom  he  had  left,  poured  in  from  the  highest  to  the 
iowcst  in  this  land,  and  from  many  in  other  lands,  where  his  words 
bad  brought  hght  in  darkness,  comfort  in  sorrow,  hope  in  despair 
— from  the  heart  of  Africa,  from  Australia,  from  California,  as  well 
ks  from  Anierica,  where  thousands  had  loved  him  before  they  had 
seen  him  face  to  face  so  recently. 

Never  had  mourners  over  an  unsi)eakable  loss  more  exultant 
consolation,  lifting  them  above  their  own  selfish  sorrow,  to  the 
thought  of  what  they  ]iad  possessed  in  him,  and  that,  if  misunder- 
stood by  some  in  his  lifetime,  he  was  honored  by  all  in  his  death — 
that  among  men  of  all  parties,  there  was  the  unanimous  feeling 
that  the  great  presence  which  had  passed  away  had  left  a  blank 
which  no  one  could  exactly  fill. 

A  Kingsley  Memorial  Fund  was  set  on  foot  immediately  sfte? 
the  funeral,  in  London,  Chester,  and  at  Eversley.  The  call  was 
responded  to  in  America  as  well  as  in  England".  The  church  at 
Eversley  has  been  enlarged  and  improved.  The  Chester  memorials 
have  been  described  by  the  Dean  ;  and  on  the  23rd  of  Septembei 
the  London  memorial  was  placed  in  Westminster  Abbey,  of  which 
the  following  account  appeared  in  the  Times  of  the  next  morning  , 

The  bust  of  Canon  Kingsley,  which  has  been  executed  in  marble 
by  -Mr.  Woolner,  was  unveiled  yesterday  afternoon  in  Westminstei 
Abbey.  The  ceremony  was  extremely  simple,  but  interesting  and 
touching.  At  2  o'clock  Canon  Duckworth,  who  succeeded  the 
late  Mr.  Kingsley  in  his  canonry,  and  is  now  in  residence,  attendee] 
by  the  Rev.  \V.  Harrison  (Mr.  Kingsley's  son-in-law)  and  the  Rev. 
J.  Troutbeck,  Minor  Canons,  proceeded  in  surplices  to  the  Eaj)- 
tistery,  accompanied  by  the  two  sons  and  two  daughters  and 
daughter-in-law  of  the  late  Canon,  and  a  small  number  of  intiniatc 
friends.     Canon  Farrar  was  also  present,  but  took  no  official  part 

After  the  bust  had  been  unveiled  by  Mr.  Maurice  Kingsley 
Canon  Duckworth  delivered  an  address,  at  the  close  of  which  the 
ladies  laid  wreaths  of  choice  flowers  below  the  bust. 

The  bust  itself  is  one  of  Mr.  Woolner' s  finest  works,  and,  to  those 
who  knew  Charles  Kingsley  well,  represents  with  marvellous 
fidelity  the  character  which  had  so  stamped  itself  upon  his  expres- 
sive features.      The  mingled  sternness  and  tender  sympathy,  the 


486  Charles  Kings  ley.         • 

earnestness  and  i)layful  humor  are  all  in  the  -ving  ntarble.  Tc 
those  who  knew  Mr,  Kingsley  but  slightly,  the  likeness  is  at  first 
less  striking.  The  sculj^tor  holding  that  either  the  beard  or  the 
smooth  face  may  be  legitimately  treated  in  sculpture,  but  that  the 
whisker  is  a  temporary  fashion  of  no  artistic  worth,  has  (since  JNlr. 
Kingsley  wore  no  beard)  entirely  divested  the  face  of  hair,  and 
this,  while  it  increases  the  grandeur  of  the  work,  renders  the  like- 
ness less  immediately  apparent.  But  we  believe  that  Mr.  Kings- 
leys  own  family,  and  all  those  who  knew  him  well,  are  entiiel} 
satisfied  that  Mr.  Woolner  is  not  only  right  in  his  idea,  but  most 
thoroughly  successful  in  his  treatment. 

The  Baptistery  in  which  the  bust  is  placed,  is  rapidly  becoming, 
as  the  Dean  has  said,  "  a  new  Poets'  Corner,"  On  the  same  wall 
with  the  bust  of  Charles  Kingsley  stands  that  of  Mr.  Maurice, 
whom  he  delighted  to  call  his  "  dear  master  ; "  Keble  and  Words- 
worth find  a  place  in  the  same  chapel,  and  a  stained  window  pre- 
sented to  the  Abbey  by  an  American  gentleman  contains  figures 
of  George  Herbert  and  Cowper. 

It  was  a  matter  of  regret  to  all  that  Mrs.  Kingsley's  extremely 
delicate  health  prevented  her  presence,  but  we  may  mention,  that 
so  soon  as  the  bust  was  completed  and  ready  for  the  position 
it  now  occupies,  Mr.  Woolner  sent  it  down  to  Byfleet  for  her  in- 
spection. Those  who  know  the  danger  of  moving  heavy  works  of 
art  will  appreciate  the  sculptor's  kindness,  which  was,  we  know, 
deeply  felt  by  Mrs.  Kingsley. 

In  Eversley  Churchyard  his  wife  has  placed  a  white  marble 
cross,  on  which,  under  a  spray  of  his  favorite  passion-flower,  ai*? 
the  words  of  his  choice,  the  story  of  his  life  : 

"Amavimus,  Amamus,  Amabimus." 

And  above  them,  circling  round  the  Cross,  "  God  is  Love,"  lL( 
'<eynote  of  his  faith. 

The  green  turf  round  the  grave  was  soon  worn  by  the  tread  of 
many  footsteps  ;  for  months  a  day  seldom  passed  without  strangers 
being  seen  in  the  churchyard.  On  Bank  holidays  numbers  would 
come  to  see  his  last  resting-place — little  children,  who  :.ad  loved 
the  "  Watej-babies,"  and  tiie  "  Heroes,"  would  kneel  down  rever- 
ently and  look  at  the  beautiful  wreaths  of  flowers,  which  kind 
hands  had  placed  there,  while  the  gipsies  nei^er  passed  the  gaL« 
without  turning  in  to  stand  over  the  grave  in  silence,  sometimes 
"- altering  wild  flowers  there,  believing,  as  thev  do    to  use  their 


The  "  True  and  Perfect  K nights  48; 

5vn  strange  words,  that  "he  went  to  heaven  on  the  prayers  of  the 
gipsies." 

•  *  *  *  * 

4c  3k  He  4:  «  :fc 

And  now  these  scattered  memories,  connected  by  a  feeU*" 
thread  all  unworthy  of  its  great  subject,  draw  to  a  close.  To  some 
it  may  have  seemed  a  treachery  to  lift  the  veil  from  the  irinei  lif- 
>f  a  man,  who  while  here  hated  the  notoriety  which  he  could  not 
escape,  and  shrunk  from  every  approacli  to  egotism  ;  but  these 
private  letters,  showing,  as  they  do,  the  steps  by  which  he  arrived 
at  many  of  his  most  startling  conclusions  through  years  of  troubled 
thought,  are  a  commentary  on  much  that  seemed  contradictory  in 
his  teaching,  and  may  justify  him,  while  they  teach  and  strengthen 
others.  Those  alone  who  knew  him  intimately — and  they  not 
wholly — best  understood  his  many-sided  mind,  and  could  interpret 
the  apparent  contradictions  which  puzzled  others.  Those  who 
knew  him  little,  but  loved  him  much,  could  trust  where  they  could 
not  interpret.  But  to  the  public,  some  explanation,  if  not  due, 
may  yet  be  welcome  ;  and  in  that  invisible  state  where  perhaps  he 
nov/  watches  with  intensest  interest  the  education  of  the  human 
race,  he  would  not  shrink,  as  he  would  have  shrunk  here,  from  a 
publicity  which,  in  revealing  the  workings  of  his  own  mind,  may 
make  his  teaching  of  the  truths  which  were  most  precious  to  him 
on  earth  more  intelligible,  if  such  a  revelation  should  only  help 
one  poor  struggling  soul  to  light,  and  strength,  and  comfort,  in  the 
sore  dark  battle  of  life. 

Some,  again,  may  be  inclined  to  say  that  this  character  is  drawn 
in  too  fair  colors  to  be  absolutely  truthful.  But  "  we  speak  that  we 
do  know,  and  testify  to  that  we  have  seen."  The  outside  world 
must  judge  him  as  an  author,  a  preacher,  a  member  of  society  ;  but 
those  only  who  lived  with  him  in  the  intimacy  of  everyday  life  al 
home  can  tell  what  he  was  as  a  man.  Over  the  real  romance  of 
Sis  life,  and  over  the  tenderest,  loveliest  passages  in  his  private  let- 
teis,  a  veil  must  be  thrown  ;  but  it  will  not  be  lifting  it  too  far  to 
say,  that  if  in  the  highest,  closest  of  earthly  relationships,  a  love 
that  never  failed — pure,  patient,  passionate,  for  six-and-thirty  years 
— a  love  which  never  stooped  from  its  own  lofty  level  to  a  hasty 
word,  an  impatient  gesture,  or  a  selfish  act,  in  sickness  or  in  health, 
in  sunshiriC  or  in  storm,  by  day  or  by  night,  could  prove  that  th* 


488 


Charles  Kiiigsley. 


age  of  chivalry  has  not  passed  away  for  ever,  then  Charles  K  mgslry 
fulfilled  the  ideal  of  a  "most  true  and  perfect  knight"  to  ihe  one 
v/oman  blest  vk^ith  that  love  in  time  and  to  eternity.  To  eter- 
nity— for  such  love  is  eternal;  and  he  is  not  dead.  He  himself, 
the  man,  lover,  husband,  father,  friend,  he  still  lives  in  God,  who  is 
not  the  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living. 


CHARLES    KINGSLEY'S   GR.A.VE,    EVERSLBV    CHURCHYAKU. 


APPENDIX. 


THE  KINGSLEY  MEMORIAL  FUND. 

The  Kingsley  Memorial  Fund,  set  on  foot  in  February,  1875,  resultcil 
at  Eversley  in  the  enlargement  of  the  Church,  and  in  the  carrying  out 
of  a  plan  of  their  late  Rector  for  turning  the  old  vestry  in  the  tower  into 
a  baptistery,  opening  out  the  roof,  and  substituting  open  benches  for 
the  njmaining  pews.     The  Committee  included  the  following  names  •- 

The  Duke  of  Westminster.  Rev.  R.  C.  Powles. 

Lord  Eversley.  Rev.  Elis  Price. 

Lord  Calthorpe.  Mr.  Martineau. 

Rt.  Hon.  W.  Cowper  Temple.  Mr.  Stapleton. 

General  Sir  William  Codrington.  Mr.  Tindal. 

Sir  William  Cope.  Mr.  Dew. 

Mr.  Beresford  Hope,  M.P.  Mr   Wyeth. 

Mr.  Raikes  Currie.  Mr    Seymour. 

On  a  Brass  Plate  in  the  Baptistery  these  words  are  inscribed  :  — 

IN      PIAM       MEMORIAM 

CAROLI   KINGSLEY 

S.    PETRI    WESTMONASTERIENSIS 

CANONICI 

HVIVSCE      ECCLESIiE 

PER  XXXI  ANNOS 

RECTORIS      DILECTISSIMI 

HANC    /EDEM    SACROSANCTAM 

QVAM     DOCTRINA    ILLVSTRAVIT    SVA 

INSTAVRANDAM    CVRAVERVIvT 

PAROCHIANI    ET    AMICI 

DESIDERANTES 

A.D. 

MDCCCLXXV. 

At  Chester,  a  Committee  with  which  the  Wrexham  Society  of  Natu- 
ral Science  joined,  was  formed,  and  it  was  decided  that  a  Marble  Bust 
should  be  placed  in  the  Chapter  House  ;  a  Medal  struck  for  successful 
students  in  the  Natural  Science  Society  ,  and  the  ladies  of  Chester 
undertook  to  restore  one  of  the  Cathc-dral  Stalls  in  memcry  of  th' 
Canon. 


^go 


Appendix. 


In  London  the  following  Prospectus  was  issued  by  Mr  JohnThynrc 
and  responded  to  most  generously,  both  in  England  and  America. 


KINGSLEY  MEMORIAL  FUND. 

WESTMINSTER. 

Independently  of  the  proposed  Restoration  of  E\  ersley  Church,  it  i:- 
proposed  that  a  Bust  should  be  made  of  the  Rev.  Charles  Kmgsley, 
and  that  one  copy  be  presented  to  the  Chapter  of  Westminster,  to  be 
placed  in  the  Abbey,  and  another  to  Cambridge,  of  which  Universit) 
Mr.  Kingsley  was  so  distinguished  a  member. 

Mr.  Woolner,  R.  A.,  has  expressed  his  willingness  to  undertake  the 
execution  of  the  bust. 

The  following  have  already  sent  in  their  names  in  support  of  tli€ 
Memorial  : — 


The  Archbishop  of  Dublin. 

The  Dean  of  Chester. 

Mfred  Tennyson,  Esq. 

Tom  Taylor,  Esq. 

The    Master   of    Trinity   College, 

Cambridge. 
The    Rev.     H.    Montagu    Butler, 

D.D. 
Professor  Max  Miiller. 
A.  Macmillan,  Esq. 
The  Bishop  of  Chester. 
The  Marquis  of  Lansdowne. 
The  Hon.  J.  L.  Motley. 
The  Rev.  Chancellor  Benson,  D.D. 
The  Duke  of  St.  Alban's. 
John  Walter,  Esq.,  M.P. 
The  Duke  of  Bedford. 
The  Marquis  of  Lome,  K.T. 
The  Right  Hon.W.E.  Forster,M.P. 
The  Right  Hon.  G.  Hardy,  M.P. 
The  Hon.  C.  L.  Wood. 
Professor  Tyndall . 
Lord  Clinton. 
Lord  Penrhyn. 


Sir  Arthur  Helps,  K.C.B. 

Anthony  Trollope,  Esq. 

Thomas  Hughes,  Esq. 

The  Dean  of  Windsor. 

John  Martineau,  Esq. 

Prescott  Hewett,  Esq. 

G.  W.  Smalley,  Esq.,  New  York. 

The  Rev.  C.  Powles. 

The  Rt.  Hon.  Lord  John  Manners, 

M.P. 
Matthew  Arnold,  Esq. 
Lord  Houghton. 
The  Rev.  S.  Flood  Jones. 
The  Duke  of  Argyll,  K.T. 
The  Bishop  of  Winchester. 
The  Earl  of  EUesmere. 
Sir  Thomas  Watson,  Bart. 
Sir  Charles  Russell,  Bart.,  M.P. 
Lord  Carlingford. 
The  Rev.  Lord  John  Thynne. 
Lord  Henniker. 
The  Rev.  Stopford  Brooke. 
The  Earl  of  Clarendon. 
The  Rev.  Canon  Prothero. 


Trcasiir'.r  : 
John  C.  Thynne,  Esq. 
Little  Cloisters,  Westminster,  Feb.  19,  1875. 

The  list  of  Subscribers,  which  is  too  large  to  be  inserted  here, 
includes  many  names,  dear  to  one  who  loved  Art  as  he  did  :  among 
them,  George  Macfarren,  Alma  Tadema,  James  Burn  ;  besides  those 
of  American  friends  who  had  welcomed  him  so  warmly  and  so  lately  to 
their  homes  across  the  Atlantic.  Mr.  Charles  Peterson,  of  Phila 
delphia;  Mr.  J.  A.  C.  Gray,  of  New  York;  Mr.  G.  W.  Childs,  0/ 
Philadelphia;   Mr.  D.  O.  Mills,  of  California,  &c.,  &c. 


Appcjidix.  491 

II. 

CHRONOLOGICAL  LIST  OF 
THE    REVEREND   CHARLES  KINGSLF.Y'S  WORKS. 


1848  Saint's  Tragedy. 

1849  Alton  Locke. 
1849  Yeast. 

1849  Twenty-five  Village  Sermons. 

1852  Phaeton. 

1852  Sermons  on  National  Subjects,  ist  Series. 

1853  Hypatia. 

1854  Sermons  on  National  Subjects,  2nd  Series. 

1854  Alexandria  and  her  Schools. 

1855  Westward  Ho ! 

1855  Sermons  for  the  Times. 

1856  The  Heroes. 

1857  Two  Years  Ago. 

1858  Andromeda  and  other  Poems. 

1859  The  Good  News  of  God — Sermons. 
1859  Miscellanies. 

i860  Liinits  of  Exact  Science  applied  to  History(Ii  augural  Lecturcsl 

1861  Town  and  Country  Sermons. 

1863  Sermons  on  the  Pentateuch. 

1863  Waterbabies. 

1864  The  Roman  and  the  Teuton. 
1866  David  and  other  Sermons. 

1866  Hereward  the  Wake. 

1867  The  Ancien  Regime  (Lectures  at  the  Roy  v   Institution). 
7867  Water  of  Life  and  other  Sermons. 

1869  The  Hermits. 

I869  Madam  How  and  Lady  Why. 

1 87 1  At  Last. 

1872  Town  Geology. 

1872  Discipline  and  other  Sermons. 

1873  Prose  Idylls. 

1873  Plays  and  Puritans. 

1874  Health  and  Education. 
lfcp'4  Westminster  Sermons. 

1875  Lectures  delivered  in  America 


INDEX 


ABBOT,  Archhisl.op,  portrait  of,  by 
Vandyke,  59. 

Abergcldie,'  Castle  of,  380,  381. 

Abou  Zennab  and  his  horse,  story  of,  214. 

"  Advanced  thinker  "  rebuked  by  Kings- 
ley,  280. 

Agassiz  Museum,  455, 

Aldershot,  camp  at,  233 ;  lecture  to 
troops  in  camp  at,  279  ;  lecture  on 
study  of  history  at,  354,  411. 

Alston,  Capt.  A.  H.,  friendship  between 
Kingsley  and,  239. 

"Alton  Locke,  Autobiography  afa  Cock- 
ney Poet,"  origin  of,  iii  ;  finished, 
127  ;  published  by  Chapman  &  Hall, 
128;  published,  132  ;  Carlyle  on,  132; 
how  received,  136. 

America,  Kingsley  sails  for,  with  daugh- 
ter, 452. 

American  Lectureship  at  Cambridge, 
address  on  by  Kingsley,  364 ;  offer 
to  establish  rejected,  366. 

American  States,  Kingsley  proposes  to 
lecture  on  history  of,  319. 

Andover,  4^5. 

Animals,  love  of,  263. 

Archasological  Society  of  Chester,  Kings- 
ley  presides  at,  413. 

Argylf    Duke  of,  book  by,  377. 

Aristocrat,  Kingsley  repels  charge  that 
he  is,  109. 

Arnold-,  Matthew,  "  Culture  and  Anar- 
chy," 420. 

Arnold's  Life  and  Letters,  469. 

Alt  of  Learning  (the),  lecture  by  Kings- 
ley  en,  330. 

"  At  Last,'  406. 

Articles  (the),  force  of  subscription  to, 
358,  359. 

Athanasian  Creed,  325,  354 ;  asked  to 
join  committee  in  defence  of,  438. 

Atheist  editor,  correspondence  with,  288. 

Attacks  on  Kingsley 's  teachings  by 
press,  3H6. 

"Autobiography  of  a  Cockney  Poet," 
III. 

Avignon,  353. 


BALI  IMORE,  Kingsley  preaches  ia, 
460. 
Baptism,  infant,  F.  D.   Maurice  on,  84 
Baptists,  F.  D.  Maurice  on,  83. 
Barnack,  living  of,  presented  to  Charles 

Kingsley,  Sr.,  for  son  Herbert,  24; 

living  surrendered,  28. 
Bateson,  Master  of  St.  John's  College, 

recollections  by,  52. 
Bates,  H.,  letter  to,  339. 
Bath  and  Wells,  Lord  Arthur  Harvey, 

Bishop  of,  311. 
Beatific  Vision,  sermon  on,  452. 
Beetle,  incident  connected  with,  470. 
Bell,  Dr.,  and  Mrs.  W.  A.,  468. 
Bennett,  Sir  William  Sterndale,  320. 
Bennett,  Charles  Henry,  consults  Kings 

ley    about    illustrating    "  Pilgrim's 

Progress,"  289. 
Benson,  Dr.,  memories  of  Kingsley  by, 

328. 
Berkeley  University,  at  Oakland,  visited, 

468. 
Betting,  letter  to  young  men  of  Chestei 

on,  426  ;  letter  on,  to  son,  431. 
Bewick's  works,  369. 
Biarritz,  348,  353. 
Bible  politics,  135. 
Birmingham,  lectures  on  Human  Physi 

ology,  436. 
Blackwell,  Dr.  Elizabeth,  405. 
Blandford,  Kingsley  curate  of,  69. 
Bloomfield,  Dr.,  Bishop  of  London,  for 

bids  Kingsley  to  prcacl:  in  London 

147  ;  prohibition  withdrawn,  147. 
Blomfield,      Canon   of    Chester,   lelUl 

from,  442,  443. 
Body  and  Soul,  235. 
Boston,  455,  459. 
Botta,  Prof,  and  Mrs.,  456,  457. 
Bovill,  Chief  Justice,  death  of,  432. 
Bowles,  Samuel,  456. 
Boys,  teaching  of,  Kingsley's  views  00, 

226. 
Bramshill  Park  Camp,  432. 
"  Brave  Words  to  Brave  Soldiers,"  bj 

Kingsley,  215. 
Bremer,   Frederika,    135  ;    visits   E-.  jrs 


494 


Index, 


ley  Rectory,  170 ;  letter  to  Kings- 
ley,  171. 

Bright,  Mynors,  letter  from,  42. 

Firiniley,  George,  letters  to,  136,  276. 

Bristol  riots,  31,  159. 

British  Association  meets  at  Cambridge, 
321  ;  meeting  of,  at  St.  Andrews,  379. 

British  Museum,  paper  on,  by  "  Parson 
Lot,"  102. 

brontii.  Miss,  Life  and  Works  of,  269. 

Bioolce,  Rajah,  Sir  James,  letter  from 
on  "  Westward  Ho  !  "  221. 

Brotherhoods  and  societies,  letter  from 
Kingsley  on,  211. 

Brother's  love  illustrated  by  story  of 
Dover  coachmen,  60. 

Brown,  Rev,  Baldwin,  on  keeping  Crys- 
tal Palace  open  on  Sundays,  171. 

Bryant,  W.  C,  457. 

BuUar,  John,  letters  from  Kingsley  to, 
237,  267,  268,  275. 

Bunbury,  Sir  Charles  Fox,  letter  from 
Kingsleyon  rain  sermon,  309;  Kings- 
ley's  friendship  with,  311  ;  memories 
of  Kingsley,  312 ;  proposes  Kings- 
ley  as  Fellow  of  Geological  Society, 
326  ;  letter  from  Kingsley  to,  on  ap- 
pointment to  Westminster,  449. 

Bunsen,  Chevalier,  62  ;  on  "  Hypatia," 
178,  180;  letter  from,  to  Kingsley 
about  preface  to  "  Deutsche  Theolo- 
gie,"  208. 

Bunsen,  Henry  de,  paper  by,  on  "  How 
can  the  State  best  help  in  the  Edu- 
cation of  the  Working  Classes," 
403  ;  recollections  of  Kingsley,  403. 

Sutton  Cap  at  Barnack,  24. 


CALVINISM,  -uinous  influence  of, 
237- 

Cambridge,  inc  ^ient  of  examination 
at,  53 ;  inaugural  lectures  at,  by 
Kingsley,  311,  455. 

Campbell,  Rev.  E.  Pitcairn,  letter  from, 
44  ;  letter  to,  on  Royal  Wedding, 
327  ;  on  toads  in  a  hole,  341. 

r.mterbury,  Archbishop  of,  congratu- 
lates Kingsley  on  appointment  to 
Westminster,  443. 

'^aicassonne,  350. 

C'T.ilyle's  works,  effects  of,  on  Kingsley, 
49 ;  writings,  bright  views  of  life, 
given  by,  75,  118 ;  recommends 
"Alton  Locke"  to  Chapman  and 
Hall,  128;  opinion  of  "Alton 
Locke,"  132  ;  Kingsley  not  follower 
of  in  theology,  269  ;  views  on  Church 
of  England,  320. 

Carnarvon,  Lord,  287. 

Catholics,  justice  to,  285, 

Character  Album,  as  filled  out  by 
Kingsley,  43^. 

Chartist  outbieak  94  ;  Kingsley  preach- 
es  on,  97 ;  sketch    of,    by   Thomas 


Hught!,     93        Kirgslej      at. ends 

Chartist  meet.ng,  117. 
"  Cheap  Clothes,  and  Nasty,"  by  Parson 

Lot,    129  ;  preface  to,    by   Thomas 

Hughes,  97. 
Chester,  Kingsley  takes  up  residence  at, 

411;  botanical   class  at,  423;  Lyelj 

made  member  of  Natural  Science 

Society,  424. 
Chevallier  Mons,  117. 
Childs,  G.  W.,  458. 
Cholera  in  England,  120  ;  three  sermoni 

preached  on,  120. 
Christ  weeping  over  Jerusalem,  subject 

of  sermon  in  Westminster  Abbey, 

475- 
Christian    Socialist,    135  ;    attacked    in 

Edinburgh     and      Quarterly,     137 ; 

stopped,  164. 
Chronological  list   of  Kingsley's  works, 

491. 
Church  of  Rome,  letter  from  Kingsley 

to  young  man  going  over  to,  114. 
Civil  Service  Volunteers,  Kingsley  made 

chaplain  of,  308. 
Clemens,  Samuel  (Mark  Twain),  459. 
Colenso  on  Pentateuch,  343. 
Coleridge,  Derwent,  Kingsley's  teachei 

at  Helston,  32 ;   reminiscences  by, 

33- 

Colorado  Springs,  469. 

Congreve,  Capt. ,  memories  by,  283. 

Conington,  Prof.,  reviews  "  The  Saint's 
Tragedy,"  92. 

Conscience,  incident  of  Maurice's  lec- 
ture on,  387. 

"  Constitutionalism  of  the  Future,"  let- 
ter to  Prof  Lorimer  on,  373. 

Comte,  lectures  on,  at  Cambridge,  400. 

Cooper,  Thomas,  acquaintance  with, 
begins,  108  ;  letters  to,  108,  187- 
200. 

Cornell  University,  460. 

Cotton  famine,  controversy  about  with 
Lancashire  mill-owners,  319. 

Cranworth,  Lord,  287. 

"  Crime  and  its  Punishment,"  pamphlet 
on,  by  Henry  Taylor,  388. 

Crimean  war,  207,  215. 

Crystal  Palace,  question  of  opening  or 
Sunday,  171  ;  letter  from  Kingsley 
on,  172. 

"Culture  and  Anarchy,"  Matthew  Ar- 
nold's, 420. 

Culture,  address  on,  at  Berkeley  Uni- 
versity, Cal. ,  468. 

Curtis,  G.  W.,  455. 


D 


ARWIN,  210;  "Originof  Speciti  " 
and  "  Fertilization  of  Orchids,' 
327;  conquering,  337;  letters  to, 
on  "  Natural  Selection,"  339,  377 
378  ;  Kingsley  on  progiess  of  Dar 
winism,  378. 


Index. 


495 


David.  sTmons  on,  355. 

Death  of  Kingsley,  482 

"  De'ectable  Day,  The,"  verses  on, 
438. 

Detroit,  461. 

"  Deutsche  Theologie  "  by  Bunsen,  Miss 
Winkworth  translates,  and  Kingsley 
writes  preface  to,  207,  209. 

Development  theory,  letter  to  H.  Bates 
on,  339. 

Devonshire,  Duke  of,  installed  as  Chan- 
cellor of  Cambridge,  320. 

Diphtheria  appears  at  Eversley,  278. 

Dir-.'Stablishment  discussed  in  letter  to 
Thomas  Cooper,  199. 

Drummond,  Henry,  letters  from,  on 
"  Westward  Ho  !  "  220. 

Dann,  Henry,  memories  by,  390. 


E 


7BRTNGTON,  Lord,  469. 


Edinburgh,  Kingsley  lectures  on 
"  Schools  of  Alexandria  "  at,  205. 

"  Education  of  the  Working  Classes, 
how  can  the  State  best  help  in," 
paper  by  Henry  de  Bunsen,  403. 

education  League,  Kingsley  joins,  404. 

"  Egotism, "  article  on,  by  Lionel  Tolle- 
mache,  402. 

Elegiacs  composed  on  Morte  Sands, 
112. 

Emancipated  Women,  letter  from  Kings- 
ley  to  John  Stuart  Mill  on,  417. 

Emma,  Queen  of  Sandwich  Islands, 
visits  Eversley,  361  ;  writes  letter  to 
Dr.  Benson  of  Wellington  College, 
361 ;  letter  from,  to  Kingsley,  362 

Endless  Torment,  letter  to  Thomas 
Cooper  on,  194, 

Epicedium,  165. 

Erie  Railroad,  narrow  escape  from  acci- 
dent on,  460. 

Erskine,  Henry,  death  of,  356. 

Erjkine,  Rt.  Hon.  Thomas,  settles  at 
Eversley,  164, 

"  Essays  and  Reviews,"  letter  from 
Kingsley  to  Dean  Stanley  on,  316  ; 
letter  on,  to  Bishop  of  Winchester 
(Dv.  Sumner),  367. 

!£vcrsley,  Kingsley  made  Curate  of,  54  ; 
parish  described,  58  ;  life  at,  de- 
scribed by  mother,  67 ;  Kingsley 
settles  as  Rector  of,  76  ;  parish  work 
at,  77;  first  confirmation,  79;  low 
contagions  fever  breaks  out  in,  118; 
fllood  in,  129;  study  window  of  rec- 
tory, 396;  life  at  rectory  described 
by  Rev.  Wm.  Harrison,  395  ;  Kings- 
ley's  grave  in  church-yard  at,  408. 

Eyre,  Ex-Gov.  of  Jamaica,  Kingsley's 
defence  of,  370. 

"  Ezekiel's  Vision,"  sermon  before 
the  Queen,  354. 


Tn*AME  anc  Praise,  Ki.ngsley  011   229, 

Farley  Courf,  wirter  at,  233. 

Field,  Cyrus  W.,  463,465,  466. 

Field,  James  T.,  459. 

''  Firmley  Murder,"  135, 

Fishing  for  trout  at  Salisbury,  74  ;  de« 
scription  of  fishing  excursion,  107  , 
on  the  Torridge,  119 ;  Notes  on, 
to  Thomas  Hughes,  139  ;  expedition 
to  Snowdon  with  Tom  Hughes  and 
Tom  Taylor,  235  ;  lines  to  wife  on, 
241  ;  letter  to  Tom  Hughes  on,  242  ; 
in  Strati. ficidsaye,  272  ;  kills  first 
salmon  at  Markree  Castle,  308 ; 
catching  salmon  in  Scotland,  32T 
'etter  to  Froude  on,  340. 

Forster,  Rt.  Hon.  E. ,  284. 

Fortesque,  Dudley,  469. 

Eraser's  Magazine,  edited  by  Kingsley, 
376. 

Freedmen's  Aid  Union,  letter  to  T. 
Hughes  inquiring  about,  382. 

"  Frithiof's  Saga"  presented  to  Kings 
ley  by  Fredrika  Bremer,  170. 

Froude,  on  Oxford  and  Cambridge  Ke 
vicru  86,  93,  94 ;  becomes  ac- 
quainted with  his  future  wife,  Mrs. 
Kingsley's  sister,  in  ;  at  Clovelly 
met  Kingsley,  114,  117  ;  quoted  as 
an  authority  on  natural  phenomena 
of  Snowdon,  276;  letter  to,  340; 
goes  to  Spain  to  examine  Simancas 
MSS.,  347,  376;  letter  to,  from 
Kingsley  on  settlement  at  Chester, 
413  ;  opinion  of  ballad  of  Lorraine 
472- 

Froude,  Mrs.  J.  A.,  death  of,  306. 

Funeral  of  Kingsley,  484. 


GASKELL,  Mrs.,  letter  from  Kings 
ley  vindicating  her    from    attack, 
180 ;  letter  from   Kingsley  to,  on 
Miss  Bronte's  "  Life,"  269. 
Oilman,  D.  C..468. 
Geological  Society,  Kingsley  made  Ft  - 

low  of,  326. 
Gladstone  nominates  Kingsley  to  Cai 

onry  of  Chester,  404  ;    letter  fron 

appointing     Kingsley     Canon      0/ 

Westminster,  441. 
"  Glaucus,"  origin  of,  203. 
Glyder,  melodrama  on  the,  276. 
Good  Words,  319. 
Gordon,  Sir  Arthur.  in\;;fs  Kingsley  tc 

visit  Trinidad,  399. 
Gosse,  H.  P.,  Kingsley  :;".  Is  specimen; 

to,    202 ;     letter   to,   203 ;     meeting 

with,  210. 
Grant,  U.  S.  Presi  lent,  457. 
Gray,  Dr.  Asa,  335    4^6. 
Gray,  J.  A.  C,  463.  468. 
"  Great  Cities,  their  influence  for  Good 

and  Evil,  "  275. 


496 


Index. 


3reat  Exhibition,  135  ;  sermon  on  open- 
ing of,  140 ;  question  of  opening 
on  Sunday,  172,  173. 

Grenfell,  Fanny,  Kingsley  married  to, 
74- 

Grenfell,  Charlotte,  wifeof  J.  A.  Froude, 
dea'n  of,  306. 

Grsnfell,  Charles,  death  of,  306. 

Grive,  George,  letter  to,  from  Kings- 
ley  on  keeping  Crystal  Palace  open 
on  Sunday,  170. 

3  r.l,  Sir  William,  480. 


HANSARD,  Rev.  Septimus,  assists 
Kingsley  at  Eversley,  316. 

Hants  and  Wilts  Education  Society, 
lectures  before,  278. 

Hare,  Archdeacon,  94  ;  consulted  about 
protest  against  dismissal  of  Maurice 
from  King's  College,  185  ;  letter 
from,  touching  dismissal,  185  ;  wor- 
ried about  Maurice's  affairs,  206. 

Harrison,  Rev.  William,  memories  by, 
391,  482. 

Harrow-on-the-Hill,  441. 

Harvard,  address  on  American  Lecture- 
ship in  Cambridge,  364. 

Harvey,  Lord  Arthur,  Bishop  of  Bath 
and  Wells,  311. 

Hay,  Col.  John,  456. 

Hayden,  Prof.,  457. 

Helps,  Sir  Arthur,  Kingsley  writes  to, 
on  sanitary  matters,  205. 

Henry,  Dr.,  457. 

Henslowe,  Rev.  Geo.  , letter  from  Kings- 
ley  to,  on  sense  of  humor  in  Crea- 
tor, 274. 

"  Hermits"  for  Sunday  Library,  387,398. 

"  Heroes,  The,'"  book  of  Greek  fairy 
tales,  by  Kingsley,  228. 

"  Heroism,"  lectures  on,  437. 

Hildyard,  Canon  of  Chester,  letter  from, 

443- 

"  Hereward  the  Wake,"  seeds  of,  29. 

"  High  Church  Parson  "  (Rev.  Baldwin 
Brown),  on  keeping  Crystal  Palace 
open  on  Sunday,  173. 

Hippocampus  Question,  controversy  on, 
between  Owen  and  Hu.xley,  322 ; 
builesque  speech  of  Lord  Dun- 
dreary on,  by  Kingsley,  322. 

Holiest,  clergyman  of  Frimley,  murder- 
ed, 130. 

Hooker,  Dr.  Joseph,  311. 

Housebreaking  and  robbery  in  Hamp- 
shire, Surrey,  and  Susse.x,  130. 

Howard   George,  letter  from,  366. 

Howson  Dean,  memories  of  Kingsley 
hy,  44S  ;  preaches  sermon  on  Kings- 
ley's  life,  484. 

Hughes,  Piof.,  President  of  Chester 
Scientific  Society,  449. 

ilughes,  Thomas,  Kingsley  becomes 
Acqriainted  with,  94  ;  preface  by,  to 


"  Cheap  .  lothes,  and  N».-Jt>.  '  57  : 
recollectior.s  of  Kingsley  by,  97 ; 
defends  K:ngsley  from  charge  ol 
being  a  Chartist,  loi  ;  letter  fiois 
Kingsley  to,  138;  letter  fiorn 
Kingsley  to,  on  Iron  lockout,  160 ; 
on  the  Crimean  War,  214,  215  ;  on 
fishirg  excursion  to  Snowdon,  234- 
246,  247  ;  invitation  in  verse  to  visit 
Snowdon,  248  ;  gossip  about  fish- 
ing, 242  ;  letter  to,  on  "  Two  Years 
Ago,"  265  ;  on  occasion  of  Kings- 
ley's  thirty-eighth  birthday,  270  ;  on 
"  Tom  Brown,"  271  ;  on  fortieth 
birthday,  288  ;  letter  to,  about  Mill 
and  Maurice,  356  ;  letter  to,  inquir 
ing  about  Freedmen's  Aid  Union, 
382. 

Human  Physiology  and  Science  of 
Health,  lectures  on,  founded  at 
Birmingham,  436. 

Humor,  sense  of,  in  the  Creator,  letter 
on,  274. 

"  Hypatia,  '  reference  to  "  Oxford 
Tracts  ''  in  introduction  to,  43 ;  be- 
gun as  serial  in  Frascr's,  135  ;  letter 
to  J.  M.  Ludlow,  165  ;  published  as 
a  book,  178  ;  condemned  as  immor- 
al by  Professor  of  Hebrew  in  Cam- 
bridge, 342  ;  Whittier's  opinion  of, 

473- 
Huxley,  letter  to,  339. 
Hu.xley   and    Owen,    on    Hippocampus 

Question,  322. 
"  Hypotheses  Hypochondriacse,''  36. 
"  Hyppolytus,"    Baron    Bunsen's,   178, 

180. 


TGNATIUS   and  Hyppolytus,    Baron 
-»■      Bunsen's,  178,  180. 
Ilfracombe,  Kingsley  recruiting  at,  ill. 
Indians  of  N.  America,  Kingsley 's  viev 

of,  387- 
Indian  Mutiny,  news  of,  leceived,  ^^\ 

Kingsley  s  distress  over,  275. 
Invitation,  in    verse,  to   fishing    trip  on 

Snowdon,  to  Tom  Hughes  and  Tom 

Taylor,  248. 
Iron  trade  lockout,  letter  from  Kingsle 

on,  160. 
Ithaca,  464. 


TAMIESON'S    (Mrs.)    "S\cr-d    anO 
J      Legendai  f  Art,''  article  on,  ti   "v-a 

ser.  III. 
'*  Jane  Eyre,''  266. 

Jews'  tin  and  Jews'  houses,  371. 
inns.  The,  372. 
Dwett,  Prof.,  380. 
istice  of  God,  letter  tc  Thomas  Coo 
per  on,  189. 
'   Juvent  IS  Mundi,'  poem  by  Kingsley, 
452. 


Index. 


497 


h^'INGSLEY,  CHARLES,    birth    of, 
^•ii ;     descent,   21  ;     account   of    his 
father,    21 ;  mother,  22  ;  account  of 
maternal    grandfatlier,    23 ;     letter 
about    Button     Cap,    25 ;     sermon 
and  poems  at  four  years  of  age,  25, 
ao;  juvenile  reminiscences,  28;  be- 
gins study  of   conchology,  30  ;  life 
at  Clovelly,  Devonshire,  30,  31  ;  at. 
Helston  Grammar  School  under  Der- 
went  Coleridge,  32,  34,  36  ;    entered 
at   King's  College,    38  ;  entered    at 
Magdalene  College  and  gains  schol- 
larship,  41 ;  first  meets  future  wife, 
42  ;  thinks  of  going  to  the  Far  West, 
44 ;    difficulties   about   Trinity,    46 ; 
pedestrian  feats,  48  ;  decides  on  tiie 
Church  as  a  profession,  51  ;   leaves 
Cambridge,  53  ;  Curate  of  Eversley, 
54;  ordained  at  Farnham,  56;  hrst 
day  of  public  ministration  at  Evers- 
ley, 59  ;  engagement  to  future  wife, 
69 ;    Curate   of  Blandford,  69 ;  do- 
mestic arrangements  at  Pimperne, 
72  ;  married  to  Fanny  Grenfell,  74  ; 
presented  to  living  of  Eversley,  76  ; 
settled  as   Rector  of  Eversley,  76  ; 
first  confirmation  at,  79  ;    first  per- 
sonal  acquaintance   with    Maurice, 
80  ;  Honorary  Canon  of  Middleham, 
85  ;  eldest  son  born,  91  ;  lionized  at 
Oxford,   92 ;    Professor  of   English 
Literature   in  Queen's  College,  93  ; 
proposed  for  professorship  in  Kings' 
College,    107;    breaks    down   while 
writing  "  Yeast,"  109  ;  in  ill-health  at 
Ilfracombe,    iii  ;    decides    to   take 
pupils,  113  ;  letter  to  a  young  man 
going  over  to  Church  of  Rome,  114  ; 
breaks  down  nursing  sick  at  Evers- 
ley, ii3  ;    resigns  office  of  Clerk  in 
Orders  at  Chelsea,  127  ;  finishes  "Al- 
ton Locke,"  127;  letter  in  reply  to 
attack   on    "Yeast"  in    the   Guar- 
dian, 142  ;  publicly  rebuked  by  In- 
cumbent  of  a    London  church    for 
sermon  t  )  working  men,  146;   visits 
German)  ,  148  ;  correspondence  with 
Maurice    touc'ning   dismissal    from 
King's  College,  181-185  ;  classed  as 
unorthodox,  202  ;  lectures  at  Edin- 
burgh on  "  Schools  of  Alexandria," 
205  ;    writes    preface    to    Bunsen's 
"  Deutsche  Theologie,"    207  ;    con- 
ference with  Palmerston  on  sanitary 
matters,  207  ;  letter  irom,  to  a  lady 
enjoining  a  sisterhood,  210  ;  lectures 
on  Fine  Arts  at  Bideford,  221 ;  facility 
in  sketching,  223  ;  address  on  work  of 
ladies  in  country  parish,  223  •  writes 
the  "  Heroes,"  book  of  Greek  fairy 
tales,  228  ;  winter  at  Farley  Court, 
333  ;  "  Two  Years  Ago,"  234  ;  fishing 
excursion    to   Snowdon    with  Tom 
hughes  and  Tom  lay  lor,  254  ;  invi- 

32 


tation   to,    248 ;  versti    in    visitors 
book  at  Fen-y-gwryd,  252 :  fall  froiii 
a  horse,  255  ;  writes  preface  to  lifft 
of    Taulcr,   256;    completes  "  Two 
Years  Ago,"  265  ;    made  Fellow   oi 
Linncean   Society,    265  ;     views   on 
marriage,  267 ;    fights  diphth  Via  at 
Eversley,    278;  rebuke  to   an  "  ad- 
vanced   thinker,"  280  ;  poems  pub- 
lished, 280  ;  preav;hes  before  Queen 
and  made   a  Chaplain  in  Ordinary, 
286  ;    preaches  sermon  at  marriag*? 
of  niece  to  Max  Miiller,  287  ;  address 
to    Ladies'    Sanitary    Association, 
291  ;  appointed  Regius  Professor  ol 
Modern  History  at  Cambridge,  303  ; 
takes  his  degree  of  M.  A,  307  ;  made 
chaplain  of  Civil  Service  Volunteers, 
308  ;    preaches   sermon  for   Trinity 
House,  by  command  of  Prince  Con- 
sort, 308  ;  sermon  on  "Why  should 
we    Pray   for   fair  Weather  ?"  309  ; 
inaugural  lecture  at  Cambridge  on 
"  The     Limits    of    Exact    Science 
applied  to  History,"  311  ;   lectures 
on  "  The  Roman  and  the  Teuton, '' 
311  ;     lectures    before     Prince     of 
Wales    on     Modern  History,    314 ; 
letter  to    Dean  Stanley  on  "  Essays 
and    Reviews,"     316  ;    lectures    on 
history   of   American    States,    319 ; 
writes  installation  ode  for  Duke  of 
Devonshire  as  Chancellor  of  Cam 
bridge,  320;    visits    Scotland,  321; 
burlesque  speech  of  Lord  Dundrea- 
ry on  Hippocampus  question,  322 ; 
made  Fellow  of  Geological  Society, 
326 ;    Chaplain  to  Prince  of  Wales, 
327  ;  lecture  on  "  Art  of  Learning," 
330 ;  proposed  by  Prmce  of  Wales  to 
Oxford  for   degree  of  D.C.L.,  342  ; 
name  withdrawn,   342  ;    sermon  on 
Pentateuch,  343  ;  publishes  "Water- 
babies,"  345  ;  controversy  over  New- 
man's "  Apologia  pro  vita  sua,"  346  ; 
starts  for  Spain  with  Froude,  347; 
preaches  before  Queen  on  "  Ezeki- 
el's  Vision"  in  Chapel  Royal,  354  , 
sermons  on  David,  355  ;  visited  by 
Queen  Emma  of  Sandwich  Islai.ds, 
361 ;    lines  on  death  of  King  Leo- 
pold,   362 ;    address    on    proposed 
American     Lectureship     in     Cam 
bridge,  364  ;  lectures  at  Royal    In 
stitution  on  Science   and    Supersti- 
tion, 368  ;  defence  of  ex-Gov.  Eyre, 
370 ;    edits   Fraser's    Magazine   foi 
Froude,   376  ;    on  Darwinism,  378 ; 
visiis   Scotland,    379;   how  to  cure 
stammering,    383  ;  lectures  on  i6th 
Century,  386  ;  incident  in  Maurice's 
lecture  room,  387  ;  "  Hermits,"  387  ; 
"  Madam    How    and    Lady  Why," 
387  ;  resigns  Cambridge  profess  It- 
ship,   398,   400;    attends    W(  mtn'i 


498 


Index. 


Suffrage  meeting  with  J.  Stuart  Mill, 
398  ;  made  Canon  of  Chester,  402  ; 
presides  over  educational  section 
©f  Social  Science  Congress,  403  ; 
joins  Education  League,  404 ;  in- 
stalled Canon  at  Chester,  406  ;  sails 
for  West  Indies,  406 ;  arrival  at 
Trinidad,  408  ;  return  from  West 
Indies,  410  ;  lectures  at  Sion  College 
on  theology  of  the  future,  422  ;  presi- 
dent of  Midland  Institute,  435  ;  ap- 
pointed Canon  of  Westminster,  414; 
farewell  to  Chester,  442;  death  cf 
mc  her,  442;  first  residence  in 
Westminster,  449,  451  ;  sermon  in, 
452 ;  sails  for  America,  452 ;  ar- 
rival at  New  York,  454  ;  Boston  and 
Cambridge,  455  ;  Philadelphia,  457  ; 
Washington,  457  ;  opens  Session  of 
House  with  prayer,  458  ;  Western 
trip,  461-4.70;  severely  ill  in  Colora- 
do, 468;  returns  to  Eversley,  474 ; 
attack  of  congestion  of  liver,  474  ; 
last  illness,  477  ;  death,  482  ;  burial 
at  Eversley,  483  ;  grave,  488  ;  memo- 
rial fund,  489  ;  chronological  list  of 
works,  491. 

Kingsley  ancestry,  413. 

Kingsley,  Charles,  father.  Rector  of 
Heine,  21  ;  Rector  of  Barnack,  24; 
Rector  of  Clovelly  and  St.  Luke's, 
30,  38  ;  death   of,  304 ;  epitaph  on, 

Kingsley,  Gen.,  Governor  of  Fort  Wil- 
liam, 279. 
Kingsley,    Herbert,   living  of   Barnack 

held  for,  24  ;  death  of,  35. 
Kingsley,    Mrs.,    description   of  future 

husband,  when  she  first  met  him,  42  ; 

marriage,  74  ;  narrow  escape  of,  237  ; 

serious  illness  of,  477. 
Kingsley,  Lieut.,  death  of,  84. 
Kingsley,  Miss  Rose,  letter  from  father 

to,  107  ;  account  of  travels  in  United 

States,  454  et  seq. 
Kingsley,  Maurice,  memories  of  father 

by,  261 ;  at  home  from  Mexico,  442. 
Kingsley,  Grenville  Arthur,  second  son 

born,  283. 
Kingsley,    Mrs.,    mother    of    Charles, 

death  of,  442. 
Kingsley,  Dr.,  468. 
Kingsley,  Dr.  William,  of  New  Haven, 

459- 
Knowledge   of  God,  letter  to  Thomas 
Cooj-er  on,  193. 


Li^  BORING  Man,  Message  of  Church 
to,  sermon  by  Kingsley,  145. 
Ladies'    Sanitary    Association,    address 

to,  291. 
Ladies,  work  of,  in  country  parish,  ad- 
dress 0.1  liy  Kiii-sle\',  223. 
Land  Colo.i/atiun  ((uestiun,  117. 


Last  illness  of  Kingsley   477-482. 

"  Levana,"  by  Jean  I'aul,  quotationi 
from,  257. 

Lees,  Mr.,  reads  for  Holy  Orders  with 
Kingsley,  129. 

Leopold,  King  of  Belgium,  death  ol. 
362. 

"Limits  of  Exact  Science  applied  to 
History,"  Kingsley's  inaugural  leo 
ture  at  Cambridge,  311. 

Linrasan  Society,  Kingsley  made  Fellnvj 
of,  265. 

London,  Quarterly  Review,  favorable 
notice  of  Kingsley's  works  in,  269. 

Long  Game  (The),  135. 

Longfellow,  H.  W.,  388  ;  dines  with  at 
Cambridge,  Mass.,  456. 

Lorimer,  Prof,  letter  to  on  "  Consluu- 
tionalism  of  the  Future,"  373. 

"  Lorraine,"  ballad  of,  471. 

Lotos  Club,  reception  by,  454. 

Loyalty  and  Sanatory  Reform,  sermon 
on,  433. 

Ludlow,  John  Malcolm,  94;  letters  to, 
105,  128,  131,  165,  168,  228,  232. 

Lyell,  Sir  Charles,  letter  from,  to  Kings- 
ley  on  rain  sermon,  309,  311  ;  sec- 
onds Kingsley's  nomination  as 
Fellow  of  Geological  Society,  326; 
letter  from  Kingsley  to,  337  ;  made 
member  of  Natural  Science  Society 
at  Chester,  424. 


MACLEOD,  Dr.  Norman,  death  of, 
434- 

"  Madam  How,"  written,  283. 

''Madam  How  and  Lady  Why,"  387, 
398. 

Mallet,  Sir  Charles,  311. 

Man  and  woman,  intellectual  relation;" 
between,  55. 

Mansfield,  Charles  B.,  118;  death  of, 
216  ;  sketch  of,  by  Kingsley,  217. 

Manchester  Exhibition,  267. 

Mariposa  Grove,  467. 

Mark  Twain,  459. 

Marriage,  Kingsley's  views  on,  267; 
eternity  of,  299 ;  views  on  second 
marriage,  302. 

Martineau,  John,  recollections  of  Kii  gs- 
Ley  by,  149. 

Mar:yn,  Henry,  life  of,  74. 

Massacre  of  Innocents,  286. 

Mearice,  "Kingdom  of  Christ'  first 
read,  61  ;  Kingsley's  first  pe  sona] 
acquaintance  with,  80  ;  letter  from, 
81 ;  sponsor  to  Kingsley's  eldest 
son,  91  ;  writes  preface  to  Kingsley's 
lite  of  St.  Elizabeth,  91  ;  trying  to 
control  Chartist  outbreak,  95  ;  ex- 
cmt-ion  to  Crowland  Abbey  witn, 
107  ;  letter  from,  to  Prof.  Thom])soD 
commending  Kingsley  as  tutor,  113: 
let'crs  from   Kingsley  to,  131.  135. 


hidex. 


49^ 


•36  •  on  K.ngsley's  reply  to  review 
of  "Yeast"  in  Guardian,  142; 
anecdote  of,  by  John  Martit  eau  , 
153;  "Theological  Essays,"  181; 
tlisinissed  from  Ring's  College  for 
sermon  on  Eternal  Life  and  Death, 
i?t  ;  letters  from  Kiniisley  on  dis- 
missal, 181,  184  ;  Kingoley  visits,  in 
Jjondon,  206;  views  on  Kingsley 
writing  preface  to  "  Deutsche  The- 
ologie,"  208;  letter  to,  from  Kings- 
Icy  on  Sabbath  question,  243  ;  let- 
ter to,  from  Kingsley  on  father's 
death,  305 ;  superintends  issue  of 
"  Tracts  for  Priests  and  People," 
318  ;  letter  to,  on  Darwinism,  ■^jj  ; 
letter  to,  on  Pentateuch,  343  ;  letter 
to,  on  Stanley's  lectures  on  Jewish 
Church,  344  ;  letter  to,  on  Athana- 
sian  Creed,  354  ;  letter  to,  on  ser- 
mons on  David,  355  ;  letter  to,  on 
Doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  and  Sub- 
scription to  Articles,  359  ;  letter  to, 
on  Savonarola,  360  ;  appointed  to 
Chair  of  Moral  Philosophy  at  Cam- 
bridge, 366  ;  incident  of  lecture  on 
Conscience,  387  ;  at  dinner  to  Long- 
fellow, 388  ;  letter  to,  on  overwork, 
399 ;  death  of,  434,  435 . 

Medical  Education  of  Women,  404. 

Memorial  Fund  to  Kingsley,  485,  489, 
490. 

Nfeteor  shower,  372. 

Middleham,  Kingsley  Honorary  Canon 
of,  85. 

Mills,  D.  O..  465. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  letter  from,  297;  let- 
ters to,  from  Kingsley  on  Woman 
question,  401  ;  Kingsley 's  personal 
impressions  of,  401  ;  letter  from 
King3ley  to,  on  VVomans'  Rights. 
416 

Mitford,  Miss,  mistakes  his  curate  for 
Kingsley,  125,  135. 

Montagu,  Rev.  James,  letter  from,  50. 

Montagu,  Col.  Geo.  and  Montagu's 
Chirodota,  203. 

Montagu,  Lord  Robert,  letter  to,  on  re- 
vivals, 299. 

M  jney  difficulties,  Kingsley  on,  206. 

MjJ.sel!,  Rev.  Dr.,  letter  from,  about 
"  Santa  Maura,'"  281. 

Wllcr,  Ma.K,  criticism  on  "  Saga,"  165  ; 
en  Kingsley  at  sea-shore,  204;  visits 
Kingsley,  265  ;  marriage  of,  to 
Kingsley's  neice,  287  ;  letter  to,  on 
Jev/s'  Tin,  Jews'  Houses,  and  Ger- 
many, 371 ;  on  funeral  of  Kirgsley, 
484. 


NAPIER,  Sir  W.,  description  of,  an 
swering  to  that  of  Kingsley,  260. 
Napier,    Mrs.    Wm. ,  asks   Kingsley  to 
bless  new  regimental  colors,  279. 


Napier,  Sii  Cha  les,  on  the  22nl  Regi.. 

279. 
Narbonne,  350. 

National  Sul)jecti,  sermons  on,  \j%. 
'  Nature's  Melodrama,"  277. 
'■  Natural  Selection,"   Wallace'i  E-sa; 

on,  419. 
New  Haven,  459. 
Newman's  (Dr.)    Apolo^a pro  lita  ■  ks, 

controversy  over,  346. 
Newman,  F.,  117. 
Niagara  visited,  461. 
Nisnies,  351. 

"  North-East  Wind,  Ode  to,"  31a 
Novel  writing,  Kingsley  on,  105. 
"  Nun's  Pool,  The,"  135. 


ODE   to   the    North-East   Wind,    b» 
Kingsley,  310. 
Omaha,  463. 
Owen    and    Huxley  on    Hippo  ;ampiu 

question,  322. 
Owen,  Prof.,  118. 

Oxford  and  Cambridge  Review,  85,  86. 
"  Oxford  Tracts,"  Kingsley's  f.rst  im- 
pressions of,  43. 


■pALESTINE,   questions   about   geo- 

-•■       logy  of,  310. 

Palmer,  Gen.  and  Mrs. ,  469. 

Parker,  John,  publisher,  94. 

Parson  Lot,  origin  of  iiom  de plume ^  98  ; 

on  British  Museum,  105  ;  last  words 

in  "  Christian  Socialist,"  164. 
Patteson,  Bishop,  letter  to  Max  MuUer 

on,  435. 
Pau,  349. 
Paul,    Rev.    C.    Kegan,    Memories    ol 

Kingsley  by,  121  ;  letter  to,  130;  let- 
ter  to,  about  Justice  to  Catholics, 

285. 
Pen-y-gwryd,  lines  in  visitors'  book  at, 

by  Tom  Hughes,  Tom  Taylor,  and 

Kingsley,  252. 
Penny  Readings,  367. 
Pen'ateuch,  Kingsley's  sermons  on,  3.13. 
Penrose,  Frank,  letter  from,  50. 
"  Pepys's  Diary  "  expurgated,  402. 
Periodical  proposed,  89. 
Perkins,    Mrs.,    sister    of   Mrs.    IL  B. 

Stowe,  visits  Eversley,  234. 
Peterson,  C.  J.,  457. 
Philadelphia  visited,  457. 
"Pilgrim's   Progress"    illustrated,  33^,, 

298. 
•'Pilgrimage    of    Grace,"     unfiriishet? 

novel,  284. 
Plucknett,  Mr.,  memories  by,  22a. 
Poems  published,  280. 
Poetry,   advice  to  an  Oxford  friend  cu 

writing  and  publishing,  109. 
Poetic  faculty,  Kir  gsley's  opinion  of  hif 

own    169. 


500 


Index. 


*  pjlitics  for  People,"  ap;^arance  of 
first  number,  99. 

Popery  and  Protestantism,  struggle  be- 
tween, 88. 

Pcpery,  article  on,  in  Frascr's  Ma<^azhie, 

93 

Pcttei,  U.  S.  Senator,  460. 

Pcveity,  views  1)1',  60. 

Ptwles,  Rev.  R.  C,  reminiscences  of 
Kingsley  at  liclston  Grammar 
School,  34;  letter  to,  88. 

flL'c,  Rev.  IClis,  474. 

Prince  Consori,  286;  by  command  of, 
Kingsley  delivers  annual  sermon  at 
Trinity  House,  308;  delivers  lec- 
tures before  Prince  of  Wales  on 
Modern  History,  314;  death  of,  316, 

319- 

Piince  of  Wales,  Kingsley  lectures 
before,  on  Modern  History,  314; 
marriage  of,  327 ;  projioses  Kings- 
ley's  name  to  O.xford  for  degree  of 
D.C.L.,  342;  in  Bramshill  Park 
Camp,  432 ;  attacked  with  fever, 
432;  sends  Sir  William  Gull  to  at- 
tend Kingsley,  4S0. 

Pulliblank,  Rev.  j.,  memories  by,  386. 

Punishment,  corporal,  Kingsley  s  views 
of,  389- 

Punishment  of  children,  Kingsley  s 
views  of,  258. 

"  Purgatory  of  Suicides,"  iy  Thomas 
Cooper,  108. 


"QUEEN'S    Chaplain,    Kingsley    ap- 
■p^     pointed,  286. 

hieen,    sermon    before   on    "  Ezekiel's 
Vision,"  354. 


RABELAIS,    Kingsley  learns  from, 
-     119. 

Ragged  School,  Kingsley  on,  226. 
Ruin,  sermon  by  Kingsley  on,  309. 
Reading   for   Orders,  advice  on,  to  C. 

Kegan  Paul,  130. 
Regius  Professor  of  Modern  History  at 

Cambriilge,  303. 
Revivals  and  revivalists,  299. 
Richter,  Jean  Paul,  259. 
Rigg,  Rev.  Dr.,  letter  to,  269. 
"  Roman  and  the  Teuton,  The,"  lectures 

or,    by    Kingsley     at    Cambridge, 

3"- 
Rome,  Church  of,  Kingsley's  advice  to 
young  man  about  going   over  to, 

"4- 
Romilly,  spot  where  drowned,  284. 
Rothery,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  H.  C. ,  458,  463. 

469. 
ftoyal  Wedding,  Prmee  of  Wales,  327. 
ViBSsel',  Francis,   letter  from  Kiagsley 

to.  ass. 


SAP  BATH  question,  letter  to  Mauri?* 
on,  244. 
Sacramento,  465. 
"  Saint's  Trageily,"  published,  92. 
Salt  Lake  City,  464. 
Sanitary  Matters,  conference  with  Lord 

Palmerston  on,  207  ;  gives  evidenc* 

on  before  House  of  Commons.  210, 

clergy  urged  to  attend  to,  205. 
Sanitary  Science,  lectures  on,  286. 
S.anitary   Reform,  connection  of  woniei 

with,  291. 
"Santa  Maura,"    135;  publication    of, 

280 ;  Kingsley  to  IVlaurice  on  letter 

from  Dr.  Monsell  on,  281  ;  Kingsley's 

reply,  28;:. 
Savonarola,  letter  to  Maurice  on,  360. 
Schools  of  Alexandria,  Kingsley  lectures 

on,  at  ICclinburgh,  205. 
Schulze,  Dr.  Karl,  440. 
Science  and  Sujierstition,  lectures  on  at 

Royal  Institution,  368. 
Science  Congress,  404. 
Science  of  Health,  classes  and  lecture? 

on,  founded  at  Birmingham,  436. 
Scriptures,  study  ot,  letter  from  V .   D. 

Maurice  on,  81. 
Self-improvement,  Kingsley's  views  on, 

70. 
Sermons    for    the    Times,    227 ;     good 

worked  by,  240;  letter  to  Kingsley 

on,  from  chaplain,  272. 
Seymour,  Sir  Michael,  238. 
Shaw,  F.  G.,  454. 
Shairp,  Prof.,  memories  of  Kingsley  by, 

381. 
Shields,  Frederic,  letter  to,  on  illustrat 

ing  "  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  298. 
Shirley,  269. 
Sisterhood,    letter  from    Kingsley   to  a 

latly  on  joinin,^,  211. 
Sixtcendi  Century,  lectures  on,  386. 
Sketching,  Kingsley's  facility  in,  223. 
Smith,  Rev.  H.  Percy,  Curate  of  Evers- 

ley,  118. 
Smoking,  Kingsley  defends  his  habit  of, 

129. 
Snowtlon,     expedition    to,     with    Tcm 

Hughes  and  Tom  Taylor  jiropo.-.ed. 

234';    invitation,  248  ;' starting,  251  ; 

lines  in  visitors'  book,  252. 
Social  Science  Congress  at  Bristol,  403, 
Sorrow  and  its  lessons,  167. 
St.  Louis,  461,  462. 
"  St.  Elizabeth   of  Hungary."    Life  ol, 

commenced  by  Kingsley,  56  ;  opin- 
ion of  Coleriiige  on,  90  ;  drama  oft 

published  by  Parker,  91. 
Stair  incring,  how  to  cure,  383. 
Stanley,  Bisliop  of  Norwich,  94. 
Stanley's  "  Sinai,"  214;  Kingsley's  views 

■)f  lectures  on  Ecclesiastical  History 

2S2  ;  fust  visit  to  Eversley,  287  ;  r.c 

Kingsley's    controversy     with    I>r 

Newman.  347  ;  letter  from  Kingslef 


Index. 


50 » 


CO.  on  '*  F,s?ays  and  Reviews,"  316  ; 
"  Lectures  on  the  Jowisli  Cluircli," 
letter  to  Maurice  o  1,  344  ;  letter 
from,  on  Kingsley's  dcatli,  .jSa ; 
preaches  sermon  on,  J83. 

Btow-e,    Mrs.   Beecher,   visits   Eversley, 
234- 

Strauss's  "  !-ebon  Jesu,"  129. 

StrettoJl     Rev.  Allied,  succeeds  Kings- 
ley  hi  (Queen's  Coilege.  114. 
tndy  of  History,  354. 

Jiubjcctiun  of  Vvomen,  J.  Stuart  Mill's 
work  on,  400. 

Suffering  \vorl<ii;g  out  perfection,  227. 

Sumner,   Charles,    Kingsley  introduced 
*.o.  458  ;  sudden  death  of,  458. 


•■pAUl.ER'S  Life,  Kingsley  writes  pre- 
J-      face  to,  255. 

Taylor,  Tom,  fishing  excursion  to  Snow- 
don  with  Kingsley,  234. 

Taylor,  Henry,  on  crime  and  its  punish- 
ment, 388. 

Taylor,  Mrs.  Peter,  letter  from  Kingsley 
to,  on  women's  suffrage,  415. 

Teaching,  Kingsley's  plan  of,  113. 

Teetotalism,  137. 

Temperance  question,  451. 

Tennyson's  poems  first  mentioned,  56  ; 
Tennyson  collecting  Artiiurian  le- 
gends at  Torridge  Moors,  i  H) ;  King- 
sley visits  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Tennyson 
at  Isle  of  Wight,  287. 

Thackeray's  "  Vanity  Fair,"  Kingsley's 
judgment  of,  269. 

"  T  hology  of  the  Future,"  lecture  on, 
by  Kingsley,  421. 

Thompson,  Yates,  of  Liverpool,  pro- 
poses to  establish  American  Lec- 
tureship at  Cambridge,  364  ;  offer 
rejected,  366. 

"  Thoughts  in  a  Gravel  Pit,"  lecture  on, 

275- 
"  Three  Fishers,    circumstances  under 

which  written,  157. 
Times,  London,  on  Woolner's  bust   of 

Kingsley,  485. 
Toads  in  a  hole,  letter  to  Rev.  E.  PJt- 

rairn  Campbell  on,  341. 
Tolicmache,  Lionel,  Kingsley's  views  of 

article  on  Egotism  by,  402. 
"  Tom   Brcjwn,"  Kingsley's  oijinion  of, 

Torquay  described,  201. 
Total  abstinence,  451. 
'  Town  and  Country  Sermons,"  325. 
"  Town  Geology,"  lectures  by  Kingslev, 

i  i.ictariins,  iig. 

'•  7'racts    for    the    limes,"    Kingsley's 

opinion  of  characterization  'oy  /ici- 

inburtfh  Ne-'ie7i.i,  51 
"  1  racts  lor  Priests  and  People,"     ssticil 


under  suiieiiutcndcncv  t)f  Mr.  Man 
rice,  318. 

Trades  Unions,  letter  from  Kingsley  01. 
239. 

Transmutation  Theory,  203. 

Trijvcs,  visit  to,  148. 

Trinidad,  arrival  at,  jo3. 

Trinity,  letter  to  Thomas  Cooper  on, 
198. 

Trinity,  doctrine  of,  letter  to  Mauiito 
<J".  357- 

Tulloch,  l'rincli)al,  379. 

"  Twenty-five  Village  Sermons,"  17^. 

"  Two  Years  Ago,"  completed,  265;  fa- 
vorable ojiinion  of,  268  ;  letter  from 
a  naval  chaplain  about,  273;  inliu 
ence  of,  272. 


U 


NITI-.D    STATES,   Kingsley    and 
daughter  sail  for,  452. 


V 


AN    DE   WEYER,  M.,  379. 


Verses  by  Kingsley,  120. 

"  Vestiges  of  Creation,  The,"  203. 

Vicars,  Cajjt.  Iledley,  death  of,  216. 

"Village  Sermons,"  117. 

Visitors'  book  at  Pen-y-gwryd,  lines  in. 

by  Kingsley,  Hughes,  and  'J'aylor 

252. 


■yiTAGES  of  sin  is  death  ;   sermon  at 
»  »       Chapel  Royal  St.  James's,  354. 

Wallace,  Alfred  "  Essay  on  Natural  Se- 
lection," 419. 

Warre,  John  Ashley,  death  of,  306. 

Washington  visited,  457-460. 

"  Watcrbabies,  The,"  written,  283,  3!,o, 
345- 

Wellington  College,  Kingsley's  interest 
in,  328  ;  lecture  on  Natural  History, 
before,  330. 

Westminster,  Kingsley  made  Canon  of, 
441  ;  first  residence  at,  451  ;  .sermon 
in  Abbey,  before  sailing  for  Ameri- 
ca, 452  ;  allusion  in  sermon  to  tele- 
gram from  King.sley  by  Denn  o? 
Westminster,  466  ;  Kingsley's  last 
sermon  in,  475  ;  Dean  of  Westmins- 
ter at  Kingsley's  funeral,  483  ;  Wool- 
ner's bust  of  Kingsley  unveiled  iu 
Westminster  Abbey,  485. 

"  Westw.ird  Ho!"  C(minienccd,  210, 
correspondence  about,  220,  50:  ; 
letter  from  naval  officer  en,  238. 

West  Indies,  Kingsley  sails  fcr,  406;  re 
turn  Irom,  410. 

\\  barton,  Dr  .  456. 

Whewell,  I)r  303  ;  directs  formation  o 
class  on  Modern  History  undei 
Kingsley's  instruction,  for  Pvinc* 
ol   Wales,  315  ;  death  of,  36^ 


502 


Index. 


Wh/ttier,  J.  G. ,  letter  from,  472 
"  Why  should  we  pray  for  fair  wea- 
ther? "  seriiion,  300. 
Wilberforce,  Bishop  of  Oxford,  congrat- 
ulatory note  from,  on  appointment  to 
Chester,  403  ;  congratulates  Kings- 
ley  on  appointment  to  Westminster, 

'143- 
Winchester,    Bishop     of,     letter    from 
Kingsley  to,  on  "  Essays  and    Re- 
views," 317  ;  at  Kingsley's  funeral, 

4S3- 

\;inkworth.  Miss,  translates  Bunsen  s 
'  Deutsche Theologi^"  207  ;  letter 
to,  from  Kin^sley  about  preface  to 
"  Life  of  Ta.uler,"  255. 

Winthrop,  R.  C. ,  457. 

Women,  and  Sanitary  reform,  293. 

Women,  medicnl  education  of,  discussed 
at  Social  SiJence  Congress  at  Bris- 
tol, 404. 

Women's  Suff  nge,  letter  to  Mrs.  Peter 
Taylor  on,  415  ;  letter  to  John  Stu- 
art Mill  or.  416. 

"  Wonders  of  the  Shore,"  202,  203. 

Wood,  Dean  of  Middleham,  appoints 
KTgiley   :?onorary  Canon,  8=;. 

Wood    Pits;    VL    H, ,  Rector  of  Cop 


ford,  letter  to,  67  ;    visits  Eierslej 
68. 

Woolner's  bust  of  Kingsley  unveileil  it 

Westminster  Abbey,  485. 
Wordsworth's  "  Excursion,"  75. 
Work    of   ladies  in    a  country  parish, 

address  on  by  Kingsley,  223. 
"  Working  parson,  A,"  96. 
Working  men,  sermons  to,  145. 
Workmen's     Club,    literat  ire     recom 

mended  for,  319. 
Workmen,  Kingsley's  address  to,  95. 


WALE  College,  459- 

"  Yeast,"  published  as  serial  in  Frastr'i 
Magazine,  92  ;  Kingsley  breaks 
down  while  writing,  109  ;  publica- 
tion of,  provokes  enemies,  133  ;  re- 
viewed unfairly  in  Guardian,  141 ; 
testimony  to  good  influence  of,  143, 
266. 

Ynsemite  Valley,  Kingsley  preaches  in, 

465- 
Voting,  Brigham,  463. 
Young  n^  en,  Kingsley's  syn\patk7  vit^ 

163. 


2^.0 


rU 


